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Monthly Archives: October 2014

2 dimensional external gamma meaurement as a basis for radio protection is inadequate because:

1. “In a state of an acute radiation emergency, the recommended intervention
actions such as sheltering and evacuation are based on the measurement of the
external dose rate. Basic protective actions against hot particles are
presumably appropriate in almost all practical situations. However, the
problem that highly active particles may be present in the air although the
external dose rate is below the recommended operative action level (for
example, the recommended external dose rate limit for sheltering is 100
μSvh) is not only theoretical. The management of this situation requires special
knowledge and equipment that are not necessarily available to the staff
operating in field conditions. The possibility that highly active particles may
serve as an additional health threat must be evaluated case by case based on
expert judgement by the authorities familiar with radiation protection issues.”

3.
“Following their release, radioactive particles represent point sources of short- and
long-term radioecological significance, and the failure to recognise their presence
may lead to significant errors in the short- and long-term impact assessments
related to radioactive contamination at a particular site. Thus, there is a need of
knowledge with respect to the probability, quantity and expected impact of
radioactive particle formation and release in case of specified potential nuclear
events (e.g. reactor accident or nuclear terrorism). Furthermore, knowledge with
respect to the particle characteristics influencing transport, ecosystem transfer
and biological effects is important.” Source: Overview of sources of radioactive
particles of Nordic relevance as well as a short description of available particle
characterisation techniques Ole Christian Lind1), Ulrika Nygren2), Lennart Thaning2), Henrik Ramebäck2), NKS-180
ISBN 978-87-7893-246-4 Denmark 2008

29 March 2011
Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce AC
Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia
Government House
Dunrossil Drive
YARRALUMLA ACT 2600

Your Excellency

INTRODUCTION

This submission is made to the Governor General in Council in accordance with Australian Military Regulations and Orders as they existed in the 1950s. It requests a review and cancellation of the currently accepted study of the health of Australian nuclear veterans contained in Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests in Australia by Dr Gun et al. Both the hazardous environments and resulting detriments to the health of many nuclear veterans have been incorrectly assessed in this document, leading to many false exposure and compensation assumptions that also need revision and remedial action.

[A summary is available on page10]

BACKGROUND

The basis on which the Cancer and Mortality Study was constructed omits several important areas of consideration and makes no effort to explain the effect of these omissions.
• It confined the study to the carcinogenic effects of ionising radiation, ignoring:
o Non-carcinogenic effects following exposure to internal radioactive emitters with long biological half-lifes resulting in;
• Loss of immune competence,
• Short and long term sterility, miscarriages, stillbirths, etc,
• Heredity defects in subsequent generations,
• Accelerated aging, and/or
• Psychological damage;
o Carcinogenic effects of non-ionising materials also present at the tests such as;
• About 30 kg of beryllium used as a fast neutron reflector in some weapons,
• Asbestos wool particulate filters used in WW2 gas masks as an expedient in protective clothing;
• The range of health effects (such as “radiation sickness”) suffered by nuclear veterans during the tests was concealed from the study by the non-production of relevant records from:
o Operation Hurricane “Health” ship (HMS ZEEBRUGGE);
o The Emu and Maralinga hospitals and related outstations.
o RAAF Base Hospital Amberley:
o RAAF Woomera Hospital.
• The availability of a dosage document by the UK Government “Listing of Persons at UK Overseas Defence Nuclear Experimental Programmes – Citizens of Australia” (known as the “Blue Book”) has resulted in a lessened appreciation of the hazardous dosages actually present
o Servicemen working in highly exposed situations have been omitted, eg;
• Crew of HMAS KOALA responsible for dragging the floor of the Monte Bello Lagoon almost immediately after detonation and many subsequent days,
• Aircrew, ground-crew and decontamination parties involved with fallout cloud collection sorties after Hurricane and Totem 1 (film badges were not issued);
• Yellow entry training during inter-trial period at Maralinga;
• Vehicle mechanics recovering yellow vehicle breakdowns;
• Buffalo and Antler military engineers engaged on tasks such as telemetry retrieval functions commencing shortly after detonation;
• Many “Indoctrinee Force” servicemen;
o No mention was made of doses resulting from inhaled/ingested radioactive material, particularly where long biological half-lives were involved;
o Many other film badges had not been processed;
o In any case, the UK denied responsibility for the document’s content (page (ii)).
• Statistics collected before 1982 were mainly collected from Death Certificates, leaving both cancer and cancer mortality incidence between 1952 and 1981 open to question;
• Work program, re-entry schedule and task allocation documentation have long since disappeared. The linking of individuals to the possibly numerous range of their employments and then summing the total dosage for each individual was well beyond the capabilities of the Dosimetry subcommittee. This resulted in guesswork based on a person’s basic trade, ship’s name, corps designation, etc (limited by the entry in the “job” field of the information spreadsheet);
• An estimated constant gamma dose rate of 0.01 mSv/hr was used for calculations involving gamma exposure. No adjustments were made for weapon yield, distance from GZ, time post detonation or other environmental factors. This formula tends to level out dosages resulting from high exposure situations, particularly Immediate and Early Re-entry tasks involving dusty inhalation/ingestion conditions.
• The above background discussion provides a number of conditions that reduce the viability of the Cancer and Mortality Study and should have, as a minimum, been taken into account in the findings. In addition, Royal Commission Conclusion 201 (15.6.13) goes even further and questions the feasibility of attempting such a study:

“Because of the deficiencies in the available data, there is now little prospect of carrying out any worthwhile epidemiological study of those involved in the tests nor of others who might have been directly affected by them.”

FACTORS

There are a number of factors that have adversely affected the integrity of the Cancer and Mortality Study.

Scientific Bias. Bias is the act of presenting a partial perspective at the expense of possibly equal or better alternatives. If a study is to be scientifically coherent, it must avoid bias and present facts and other valid points of view that may have a bearing on the outcome. Government influence, including overt and covert censorship, bias in the media, market influence ((including the nuclear industry), author selection, etc, are all areas of potential bias.

The Cancer and Mortality Study includes references to a number of other studies that provide support in a mutually cyclic manner. They omit mention of many other studies by reputable scientists/organisations that question the methodology adopted by the Cancer and Mortality Study. Some examples are as follows:
• Dr Keith Baverstock, previously head of the Radiation Protection Division of the World Health Organisation and currently Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Kuopia, Finland. In his paper “Science, Politics and Ethics in the Low Dose Debate,” he points out the following problems in the British NRPB study of UK Nuclear Veterans (many references in the Cancer and Mortality Study) and other study areas;
o When a large excess of leukaemia was found in comparison with the controls, a scientifically unacceptable alternative comparison was made with the general population where the undesirable excess disappeared,
o Further UK Nuclear Veterans discovered in 1988 were not included in the original NRPB Study, revealing the omission of 30% of multiple myeloma cases,
o The lack of dosimetric data did not justify the lumping together of exposed and unexposed individual dose assessments,
o It is clear that the science and associated ethics have been perverted for political ends,
o Uranium is chemically toxic and its geno-toxicity should be assessed together with its radioactive properties and bystander effects,
o The ICRP routinely uses essentially untested models to determine the risks from internal emitters.
• Professor Shoji Sawada is a theoretical particle physicist and Emeritus professor at Nagaya University. He has written a paper titled “ Cover-up of the Effects of Internal Exposure by Residual Radiation from the Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki” accepted 3 Oct 2006. The paper, based on inadequate dosage assessments, inappropriate comparison groupings and US concealment of weapon effects, disagrees with the epidemiological research carried out by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF). The ICRP dosage model is identified as being based on the RERF studies where the effects of internal exposures were given little attention. The Protocol for the Cancer and Mortality study places a great deal of reliance on the RERF studies (Vol 2, pp 119-124) as well as the ICRP dosage model.

The following abstract from the Professor’s paper identifies the origin of many of the incorrect findings in the Cancer and Mortality Study and referenced studies:

“The criteria certifying atomic bomb disease adopted by the Japanese government are very different from the actual state of the survivors. The criteria are based on epidemiological research by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, the successor to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC). The ABCC studied only the effects of primary radiation from the atomic bombing on the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and ignored the damage from residual radiation. Analysis of acute radiation disease, the rate of chromosomal aberrations, and the relative risks of chronic disease among the survivors, shows that the effects of residual radiation from fallout exceeds that of primary radiation in the area more than 1.5-1.7 km distant from the hypocentre of the Hiroshima bombing. The effects of internal exposure due to intake of tiny radioactive particles are more severe than those of external exposure, explaining the difference between the official criteria and the actual state of the survivors.”

• Australian Institute of Criminology. In a book titled “Wayward Governance: Illegality and its Control in the Public Sector,” Chapter 16 is devoted to “A Toxic Legacy : British Nuclear Weapons Testing in Australia”. It provides a brief but comprehensive coverage of the British nuclear tests held in Australia. The Chapter illustrates some of the many ways in which nuclear veterans may have been harmed by the actions of the two governments concerned:
o Public debate on the costs and risks borne by the Australian public was discouraged through official secrecy, censorship, misinformation and attempts to denigrate critics;
o D-notices were applied in such a manner that Australian journalists were forbidden from reporting items which had already been published freely in the UK;
o The Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee (AWTSC) was more sensitive to the needs of the British testing program than to its Australian constituents.;
o The AWTSC was criticised as ‘deceitful’ and having allowed unsafe firing to occur;
o Agreed with the Royal Commission statement that Professor Titterton (AWTSC) may have been more a de facto member of the British Atomic Weapons Research Establishment than a custodian of the Australian public interest;
o Committed to the continued mining and export of uranium, Australian officials were disinclined to dwell extensively on the mistakes of the past, or to highlight the risks posed by radioactive substances. Concerned about reducing government expenditure, they sought to minimise outlays for compensation. The generosity which led previous Australian governments to spend millions of dollars to host the British tests had become a thing of the past;
o The major obstacle faced by claimants was the formidable task of proving that their disability resulted from exposure to radiation produced by the tests. The task was compounded by the fact that in these cases, the ex-service claimants are totally dependent upon their former employer for the evidence necessary to present their case;
o Cancer has many causes, and to demonstrate conclusively that a particular case was caused by Maralinga exposure and not by smoking, diet, exposure to X-rays, or some inherited predisposition is extremely difficult. The Royal Commission’s recommendation that the onus of proof be borne by the government was not accepted. For this reason, most claims have thus far been unsuccessful;
o The Commonwealth government, concerned over the possibility of having to defend common law actions alleging negligence in its involvement in the testing program, vigorously contested each claim. Public assurances that the nuclear veterans were being well looked after did not appear to be borne out in the courts and hearing rooms of Australia.

• European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR). This Committee was formed in 1997 by the European Parliament to examine the Basic Safety Standards Directive (Directive Euratom 96/29). There were 46 members and advisors whose research and advice contributed to the “2003 Recommendations of the European Committee on Radiation Risk” published as “Health Effects of Ionising Radiation Exposure at Low Doses for Radiation Protection Purposes”. The listing of members contained in Chapter 15 is preceded by the following declaration:

“At 5th November 2002 the following individuals are members, advisors or consultees of the ECCR. Their inclusion in this list may not mean that they endorse all the contents of the report but does imply that they are convinced that the ICRP system of modeling seriously underestimates the risk from low level ionising radiation from anthropogenic sources.”

The ECCR concluded “that ICRP models have not arisen out of accepted scientific method. Specifically, ICRP has applied the results of external acute radiation exposure to internal chronic exposures from point sources and has relied mainly on physical models for radiation action to support this. However, these are averaging models and cannot apply to the probabilistic exposures that occur at the cell level. A cell is either hit or not hit, minimum impact is that of a hit and impact increases in multiples of this minimum impact, spread over time, Thus, the committee concludes that the epidemiological evidence of internal exposures must take precedence over mechanistic theory based models in assessing radiation risk from internal sources.”

The ICRP risk model makes assumptions that are based on value judgments that do not support its use as the basis for the Dosimetry study. This has resulted in dosage estimates in the Cancer and Mortality study that run counter to actual dosage records and epidemiological results. This is despite the exposure dilution and over-simplification of task identification applied in the dosimetry estimates. The Cancer and Mortality study has not been able to address ionisation density in time and space at the cellular level placing its viability in question.

• Dr Rosalie Bertell Ph. D., GNSH, on 21 Apr 1998, provided testimony to the United States Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. She was a biometrician (specialty in mathematics applied to biomedical problems). In her testimony she addressed two major questions, mainly based on the errors carried forward from the ABCC and RERF studies of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb casualties. Her statement commented on the basic factors used for dose reconstruction in the determination of causality for cancer or other radiation diseases:
o The atomic bomb study radiation risk factors apply directly only to external radiation, high dose and fast dose rate exposure. This research says nothing about the internal contamination with radio-nuclides experienced by any veteran participating in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki cleanup, in atmospheric weapon testing, or in radium implants. This research says nothing about the incorporation of radio-nuclides into bone with the subsequent long term chronic irradiation of the surrounding tissue;
o The Atomic Bomb Research was not designed to establish a dose below which exposure was “safe”. Had this been the case, careful examination of the harm from low dose exposures would have been mandatory;
o The atomic bomb researchers assumed (but did not demonstrate or prove) that below 1 rem exposure from the original bomb blast no radiation related cancer deaths would occur. Therefore this data base can tell us nothing about such low dose exposures because the researchers assumed their exposure was “safe” and did not test for an effect. In philosophy we call this “begging the question” and it results in an invalid “proof”;
o Atomic bomb research generally assumes that the only damage one should care about (clearly a self-serving judgement not a scientific fact) is direct damage to DNA which results in a cancer which is fatal. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki research on cancer incidence rates was not published until 1994. A comprehensive report on other chronic disease prevalence has never been forthcoming.;
o When the un-repaired or mis-repaired damage due to radiation, occurs in the germ cells, sperm (and stem cells which produce sperm) or ovum, that damage will be incorporated into every cell of the offspring made from that damaged DNA. It may show up as a miscarriage, still birth, teen age cancer or mid-life heart disease, but these are not considered to be “detriments” – another value judgment and not a scientific fact;
o It should be very clear that the Radiation Research which had been done by the ABCC and RERF has never clearly addressed the problems of non-cancer effects of exposure, Instead, they have relied on their earlier judgment that these other biological endpoints were “not of concern” and should not be studied. Cancer incidence rates were not even reported until 1994. Incidence rates for other chronic diseases have not yet even been collected in the data base, which is concerned with first cause of death. A disease like neuralgia is not likely to be the first cause of death;
o None of this mathematical reconstruction actually measures the dose which really initiated a cancer process. This dose would likely be localised to a few dozen cells in the immediate vicinity of the internal radionuclide, and these cells would constitute a very small part of an organ or tissue. When this concentrated energy release is converted to an average dose to the whole organ, and that organ dose is weighted to give an estimate of effective equivalent whole body dose, the dose appears to be very small, but locally it is significant because of its concentration.
• Professor C D’Arcy J Holman, University of Western Australia, published an article in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health titled “A Survey of Suppression of Health Information by Australian Governments” (submitted June 2007). He warned that Australia may be slipping from its formerly enviable position of relative freedom from political censorship and official corruption.

It may not have been by chance that Professor Holman undertook his research after completing his participation as a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Cancer and Mortality study. It should also be noted that the Professor did not attend the last meeting of the Scientific Advisory Committee (May 2006) where the Cancer and Mortality Study received its initial approval.

In the results it was stated that “The rates were higher in 2005/06 than in earlier years. No State or Territory was immune from suppression. Although governments most commonly hindered research by sanitizing, delaying or prohibiting publications (66% of events), no part of the research process was unaffected. Researchers commonly believed their work was targeted because it drew attention to failings in health services (48%), the health status of vulnerable groups (26%), or pointed to a harm in the environment (11%). The government agency seeking to suppress the health information mostly succeeded (87%) and, consequently, the public was left uninformed or given a false impression. Respondents identified a full range of participative, cognitive, structural and legislative control strategies.

It was concluded that “The suppression of public health information is widely practised by Australian governments.”

International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) In its assessments of internal radiation dosages, the Dosimetry study has placed a great deal of reliance on the tables published by the ICRP. The intended result was to make a retrospective assessment of organ/tissue dose for use in an epidemiological study. The legitimacy of the Dosimetry study using the ICRP risk model for this purpose is placed in serious question by the following ICRP statement (http://www.icrp.org/c2_fl.asp). Statement recently removed without explanation.

“It is not appropriate in all circumstances and guidance is given on when its use is not appropriate, for example in retrospective assessments of organ/tissue dose for epidemiological studies, in individual risk assessments after exposures above dose limits and especially after exposures to high radiation doses.”

The objectivity of the ICRP radiation risk model has been questioned for many years. The following extracts are relevant:
• “Comments by Professor Dr Chris Busby B Sc, Ph D, C Chem, MRSC concerning the death of a soldier exposed to uranium weapons during Gulf War 1;
o “The area of radiation risk from internal exposures is one of major and polarised scientific controversy. However, more and more evidence is appearing in the peer-review literature and the grey literature also, both from epidemiology and from laboratory experiments or theoretical work, that there are many serious shortcomings with the current risk model, that of the ICRP.”
o “The ICRP models cancer on a quantity termed ‘absorbed dose’ which is defined as energy per unit mass. This is an average of the ionisation over large amounts of tissue, kilograms, and is a reasonable unit for quantifying the effects of external radiation e.g. from an atom bomb’s gamma rays but is not scientifically justified for internal anisotropic radiations where there are large doses in one place and no dose everywhere else. An analogy would be to compare the same acquired by warming oneself in front of a fire with eating a red hot coal. This ‘hot particle effect’ has been the basis for most of the arguments about cancer and DU (and indeed also plutonium and fuel particles after Chernobyl and the atomic tests and near nuclear power stations).”
o “To back up their position large sums of money are given to ‘safe’ research scientists to conduct research or to produce reports that back up this position. The veterans have no money for their own research and few scientific advisors. Any other affiliated scientist soon gets to learn the disadvantage of opposing the military, the government or industry (who largely pay for all research, and hence all the wages and mortgages). The bias that exists in the science policy interface is horrifying.”
• In a paper prepared by Dr Rosalie Bertell, “Limitations of the ICRP Recommendations for Worker and Public Protection from Ionising Radiation” she discusses the viability of the data collected from atomic bomb studies (ABCC and RERF) and the closed composition of ICRP:
o “The atomic bomb studies followed, and did not precede the setting of the radiation protection guidelines recommended by ICRP and followed internationally until 1990. The main recommendations were set in 1952, and the first doses assigned to A-bomb survivors were not available until 1965. Moreover, the research was designed to determine the effects of an atomic bomb, not the health effects of exposure to ionizing radiation. The research was undertaken by military researchers from both the US and Japan familiar with and primarily concerned with military use of atomic, chemical and biological warfare agents. The research has come too late for standard setting needs, it has focused on cancer deaths, is uncorrected for healthy survivor effect, and is not inclusive of all of the radiation exposures of cases and controls (dose calculations omit fallout, residual ground radiation, contamination of the food and water, and individual medical X-ray), and fails to include all relevant biological mechanisms and endpoints of concern.”
o “It is normally claimed that biological basis of the cancer death risk estimates used by ICRP, is the atomic bomb studies. However, these studies are not studies of radiation health effects, but of the effects of an atomic bomb. For example, the radiation dose received by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors from fallout, contamination of food, water and air, has never even been calculated. Only the initial bomb blast, modified by personal shielding, is included in the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory assigned “dose”.
o “The data base for the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Life Span Study, the basis for the mortality estimates, was first identified in the 1950 Japanese Census. The information was not collected and ready for analysis until around 1957, and because it depends on first cause of death information, it was based on only a small percentage of deaths for the first seven years. It was heavily dependent on the accuracy of death certificates. Deaths in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki population between 1945 and 1950 are not included in the study.”
o “Although the A-bomb scientists have now admitted that more cancers were caused per unit dose of radiation than previously thought, ICRP has now given itself risk reduction factors for slow dose rate and low dose. This introduction of an unsubstantiated “correction factor” gives evidence of the inadequacy of the data base to answer important questions about worker and public exposures, which are almost all at low doses and slow dose rate. It also indicates that the ICRP knows that it is inadequate. There is no supporting human evidence for this reduction of the risk factors, and considerable evidence that it is not warranted.”
o “The ICRP is profoundly undemocratic and unprofessionally constituted. It is self- appointed and self-perpetuated. Certainly a recommending body could be composed of individuals elected from professional societies such as international associations of professionals trained in occupational health, epidemiology, public health, neonatology, pediatrics, oncology, etc.”
o “The ICRP assume no responsibility for the consequences attributable to a country following its recommendations. They stress that the Regulations are made and adopted by each National Regulatory Agency, and it merely recommends. However, on the National level, governments say they cannot afford to do the research to set radiation regulations, therefore they accept the ICRP recommendations. In the real world, this make no one responsible for the deaths and disabilities caused!”

Elevated Chromosome Translocations.

North Shore Hospital, Sydney. The Centre for Genetics Education, in a Fact Sheet (7) on chromosome translocations stated that a “Change in the amount or arrangement of the genetic information in the cells may result in problems in growth, development and/or functioning of the body systems;” and these may be inherited from the parent. Miscarriages and infertility were among the outcomes identified.

Western General Hospital, Edinburgh. In 1983/4 this hospital was routinely identifying chromosome damage in patients exposed to ionising radiation from industrial or therapeutic sources. Blood samples had been collected from two British Nuclear Veterans. These had been submitted but not processed on the possibility of the Medical Research Council (MRC) being involved in an epidemiological study (blind analysis of random slides) of nuclear participants. When the National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) accepted the study, the council went ahead and carried out an analysis of the two blood samples. One of the patients “in fact has quite a high degree of chromosome damage present in his blood cells” and “this would not be inconsistent with having received radiation exposure 20 or more years ago.” The MRC, probably on political direction, refused permission to advise the treating physicians, the patient, NRPB or to continue with the epidemiological study.

Massey University Report. This is a study investigating sister chromatid exchange in New Zealand nuclear veterans that has been published under the title of “New Zealand Nuclear Veterans’ Study – a Cytogenic Analysis.” and accepted for publication by the prestigious journal “Cytogenic and Genome Research.” It is an assessment of cytogenic damage in naval personnel on two New Zealand frigates that were present at the British nuclear tests code named Operation Grapple. “The result show elevated translocation frequencies in peripheral blood lymphocytes of New Zealand nuclear test veterans 50 years after the Operation Grapple series of nuclear tests. The difference between the veterans and the matched controls with this particular assay is highly significant. The total translocation frequency is 3 times higher in the veterans than the controls who showed normal background frequencies for men of this age group. This result is indicative of the veterans having incurred long term genetic damage as a consequence of performing their duties relating to Operation Grapple.”

Note the use of matched controls, not the local country population as used in the Australian study. In the Summary, it is stated that:

“We submit the view that the probable cause of the veterans elevated translocation frequencies is radiation exposure. This view is supported by the observation of a comparatively high dicentric chromosome score in the veterans which is characteristic of radiation exposure.”

In the Pilot Project conducted prior to the Massey University Study, the psychologic impact on the New Zealand Nuclear Veterans produced the following recommendations:

• “these veterans are offered assistance to help them cope with the chronic stress that some of them are experiencing. As long as the situation they find themselves in remains unresolved, stress levels are likely to remain high. There exist a number of useful techniques that could be taught to these men to help them cope with stress.”
• “given the clear evidence that at least some of the Exposed men are living with a compromised quality of life (in comparison to Controls and NZ men of similar age), there is an urgent need to formulate appropriate strategies that addresses these health inequalities.”

The Psychological Impact study of New Zealand nuclear veterans has been reviewed by Dr W Barclay AM MB BS MSc DPM FRANZCP who states that the findings of the report “might be expected to apply equally to Australian Nuclear Veterans.”

The occurrence of chromosomal damage in nuclear test veterans was first recognised in the UK in 1983. The suppression exercised at the time demonstrated knowledge of the potential harm to the health of a vulnerable group that should have been investigated. The much delayed reinforcing discovery by the Massey University demonstrates a health hazard that must not be ignored. The Cancer and Mortality Study requires drastic amendment as a result.

Dosage Anomolies

Tables 6.8 and 7.5. As mentioned earlier, Table 6.8 of the Dosimetry Study has set the figure for external gamma radiation estimations at 0.01 mSv/hr (as explained in the paragraph under the Table). Table 7.5 listing actual gamma readings for a member of the Joint Services Training Unit (JSTU), shows a reading of 20 mSv on D + 67. This was received during a 3 or 4 hour plant collection exercise (details in Lt Jenkinson’s statement to Royal Commission). This is 5 or more mSv/hr and at least 500 times the constant gamma dose rate used for dosimetry estimates. In addition, Jenkinson’s reading was recorded after 67 days of radioactive decay and because it involved plant collection would have been well outside the blast area. Based on their own Tables, the Dosimetry Study external dose rate estimations can not be justified.

Radiogenic Cancers. Certain cancers have been reported by UNSCEAR to be causally associated with ionising radiation (colon, liver, lung, thyroid, stomach, bladder, non-CLL leukaemia and non-melanocytic skin cancer). The Cancer and Mortality Study has identified:
• An SMR of 1.63 for cancer deaths in this group; and
• An SIR of 1.19 for cancers in this group.

These results were hidden from all but a detailed investigation, at the bottom of Tables 5.6 and 10.1. In a study concentrating on cancers “causally associated with ionising radiation,” these results should have received priority treatment in the Main Findings, not left to a chance unearthing.

Inappropriate Comparison Cohort. The study was unable to find an acceptably matched comparison cohort against which it could compare the cancer and cancer mortality statistics of the nuclear veterans. Instead, it was decided to use the readily available general Australian population statistics for this task. The methodology adopted did not make any allowance for the many differences (confounding factors) in the two populations that should have included consideration of the “Healthy Serviceman Effect”. The error involved is demonstrated when a comparison is made with the Vietnam Veteran’s cancer statistics, where the Nuclear Veterans Standardised Incidence Ratio for cancers increases from 1.23 in the Study to 2.95, despite significantly less confounding factors being involved except for a possible cause of excess cancers resulting from exposure to Agent Orange.

SUMMARY

The criteria on which the Cancer and Mortality Study was based, omitted consideration of:
• The total range of adverse health effects (non-carcinogenic effects of ionising material and carcinogenic effects of non-ionising material) resulting from service in a nuclear weapon test area;
• The lack of data available;
• The errors identified in dosage estimation models, particularly in the area of long term, short range, internally deposited radiation emitters;
• The warning by the Royal Commission that “there is now little prospect of carrying out any worthwhile epidemiological study.”

The elimination of hospital records for all operations, in conjunction with the discriminatory British dosage records (Blue Book), where those employed in hazardous situations had been removed, could only further degrade an already dubious study.

The study was conducted without any factual information identifying which individual carried out which function (or range of functions), for how long, location(s), potential for inhalation/ingestion of resuspended hazards or handling of radioactive target response equipments. This lack of estimation data for each individual and the fallibility of other records made it almost impossible to approximate exposure levels for an individual shown in the Cancer Registry (initiated 1982).

Many prestigious scientists and scientific organisations have made it clear that the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) has made assumptions that are based on value judgements that are not soundly based. These have resulted in study estimates that are counter to epidemiological results and a number of practical dosage records. Even more importantly, the Study has not been able to address ionisation density in time and space at the cellular level. Instead it has converted the concentrated energy release to an average dose to the whole organ, and that organ dose is weighted to give an estimate of effective equivalent whole body dose that appears to be very small. This action conceals the significance of a highly concentrated locally applied dose. This was despite the ICRP not recommending the use of its risk model derivations for retrospective epidemiological studies.

The presence of excessive chromosome translocations caused by ionising radiation in nuclear veterans has been dishonestly concealed by the UK Government since 1984. The Massey University Report has rediscovered and published a similar finding, emphasising the need for investigations into the range of adverse health effects overlooked in the Cancer and Mortality Study.

ARMY HEADQUARTERS DIRECTIVE

AHQ Directive – Nuclear Warfare (DCGS/517). Any country that places its servicemen in harm’s way, particularly when exposure to the effects of nuclear weapons is involved, has a duty of care for their future welfare. The question of whether this exposure involved overseas service, or otherwise, is irrelevant to this undertaking. The responsibility for treating “all aspects” of any detrimental health effects resulting from exposure to the effects of nuclear weapons was made the responsibility of the Adjutant General’s Branch in DCGS/517 dated 22 Feb 1956 in the following terms:

9 (a). “All aspects of treatment of personnel subjected to the effects of nuclear weapons.”

In addition, paragraph 6 of the same Directive states that current policy requires “training personnel of all units in personal protection and in the use of radiac instruments.”

The majority of Australian personnel posted in support of Ministry of Defence operational requirements did not receive training in health physics, protective procedures or use of radiac instruments and did not receive follow-up health checks or treatment.

When this lack of care began to emerge, the Repatriation Medical Authority undertook a study completed 21 Jul 2000 titled Report of the RMA Subcommittee on Ionising Radiation Dose. The report discarded its original “sound medical-scientific evidence” that service personnel “having been within four kilometres of the epicentre of the atomic bomb explosions on either Hiroshima or Nagasaki within the seven days immediately following the explosion on either of those cities” could potentially contract and also die from certain nominated diseases. If these “sound medical-scientific evidence” conditions were applied to Australian nuclear veterans in the British nuclear tests, it would have been applicable to all immediate and early re-entrants.

The RMA report, without making an examination of the British nuclear tests in Australia, determined that certain sarcomas caused by atomic radiation would require a proven dose 10 times higher if peace service (Balance of Probabilities) was the condition of service involved. To state that operational conditions of service (Reasonable Hypothesis) only requires one tenth of the dose required in peacetime to produce the same cancer, or death from this cancer, is not based on sound medical-scientific evidence, a stated requirement in each Statement of Principles (SOP).

This biased assessment was further expressed in SOP Bulletin No 42 issued on 3 Oct 2000 and titled “New Atomic Radiation Factors in RMA SOPs Interim Advice.” Paragraph 2 effectively ignores the involvement of Australian servicemen in the British nuclear tests in Australia when it identifies those servicemen with known atomic radiation exposure as:

• “POWs who were in the Nagasaki area on 9 Aug 1945;
• Personnel who served in or visited Hiroshima in connection with the occupation of Japan by the British Commonwealth Occupation Force from February 1946”.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The various strategies that have been employed to conceal the adverse health and genetic detriments of nuclear service have culminated in the Repatriation Commission sponsored study Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests in Australia. The inaccuracies in this document and all that depends on its content should be acknowledged by the Government and purged from all past and future considerations.

After half a century of neglect, nuclear veterans or their widows should be compensated for their relegation to the nuclear scrapheap. To assist in their remaining years, they should also be provided with a proper pension and a supporting gold card.

Note: A more comprehensive coverage is available in my witness statement (132 pages supported by 2,000 plus pages of exhibits).

6.
The human body is a 3 dimensional functional biological space through which the wider environment moves. The idea that 2 dimensional gamma detection is a sufficient type of monitoring to ensure health of the organism present within a contaminated biosphere is a false one. The Western view of radiological impacts has ignored knowledge which describes the long term impacts from both external and internal sources as being the foundation of Chronic Radiation Syndrome. (USSR, 1957). CRS has never been recognised openly in the West. The western view of “probablistic” disease such as cancers ignores the reality of long term systemic stress, which is not in fact probabistic but which, in the human, presents as chronic disease which increases in severity over decades, to the point of organ and systemic disregulation, often resulting in death from chronic disease, eg cancer, heart disease, etc. (Alexander V. Akleyev). The results of flawed monitoring coupled with a flaw basis results in a radiological safety regime which when applied to nuclear veterans is shown to be inadequate to describe the suffering such people have endured.

Further, the premature cell death by enhanced Apoptosis, promoted by some of proof of safety of radiation, may well be another process, necroptosis. See: “Necroptosis”,Andreas Linkermann, M.D., and Douglas R. Green, Ph.D., N Engl J Med 2014; 370:455-465January 30, 2014DOI: 10.1056/NEJMra1310050 as illustrated from the text:

Such systemic degeneration is anticipated in Chronic Radiation Syndrome
and is not anticipated in any radiological safety schema which relies on
“chance” or “probablities” where doses are below that required for
ARS. The progression of disease is thus not totally proportional to
measured to dose, that parameter being amplified or comparatively
attentuated by the status of the individual resiliance at the biological
level to radiogenic insult.

Hence, within a cohort where chronic ill health, a propensity to cancers
(Australian government, 2006, etc etc etc etc etc etc), the chort defined
exposure to radiation and radio-contaminated environments can be expected to
show individual levels of resiliance and sickness. Given the profound
ill health of this cohort, the disease defines that a dose was inflicted.
The disease defines a dose occurred. The modern Russian model of CRS
(applied under Western influence following Chernobyl, which saw
a sudden increase in East – West cooperation) is revisionist to an extent.

Further, the bodily response to radiation insult gives rise to the
cytokine response, the results of which are inflamatory.
For example: “The role of cytokines in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease is increasingly evident since the identification of immune/inflammatory mechanisms in atherosclerosis and heart failure. In this review, we describe how innate and adaptive immune cascades trigger the release of cytokines and chemokines, resulting in the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis. We discuss how cytokines have direct and indirect effects on myocardial function. These include myocardial depressant effects of nitric oxide (NO) synthase-generated NO, as well as the biochemical effects of cytokine-stimulated arachidonic acid metabolites on cardiomyocytes. Cytokine influences on myocardial function are time-, concentration-, and subtype-specific. We provide a comprehensive review of these cytokine-mediated immune and inflammatory cascades implicated in the most common forms of cardiovascular disease.” Source: Cytokines and cardiovascular disease Vishal C. Mehra, Vinod S. Ramgolam and Jeffrey R. Bender1 Published online before print July 8, 2005, doi: 10.1189/jlb.0405182 October 2005 vol. 78 no. 4 805-818

The very processes which some tout as being radio-protective (such as enhanced cell death due to low dose radiation) are in fact probably routes of radio-genic disease progression which might be interpreted as falling under the heading of “accelerated aging”, a known effect of radiation. Where an “aged” bodily system coexists with other, unaffected, bodily systems, disregulation culminating in the death of the individual might occur after decades of suffering. The aged system fails first, as noted by the Russian conclusions still not broadcast in the West outside of the military research established (See DTIC).

The nuclear mathematics failed to add up when the human toll is actually examined in the light of current knowledge outside the ambit of the authorities which have imposed secrecy upon the consequences of their own actions. There remains a case to answer and a cause and effect to the suffering not accounted for by officialdom.

Meanwhile I am not holding my breath waiting for a breathtaking about face in these matters
from an industry officialdom which was born in secret and deception.

I have considered my response to the official view that pat reading of gamma emitter per unit area is grossly insufficient. I shall detail the sources which enable me to know this in Part 3.

Here, I believe sufficient to simply quote portions of the Australian Federal Parliament Hansard briefly in order to assert that humans are not mere end points in a process of supposed valid calculation. Of course, I have the luxury of not being in the position where I have to find, on the basis of mathematics, that the official mathematic is wrong. There is a social, moral and ethical basis for excusing the maths as the final arbiter in these matters.

– in today’s grievance debate I want to raise further questions about the British nuclear weapons tests that were conducted in South Australia from the early 1950s to the early 1960s. In particular I would like to open up the question of the effect of those tests on the health of Australians who were involved in the weapons testing program at that time.

I raise this matter because I have received further evidence which I present to the House that people who formerly worked at the weapons test sites have since contracted cancer and some of them have died. I also raise this matter because there is more and more evidence in the United States that many have suffered as a consequence of the Nevada nuclear weapons tests. Yet in this country the Fraser Government still refuses to acknowledge that there have been people whose health has been affected by such tests. It even refuses to carry out or follow up any studies of health by the Australian personnel who worked at Maralinga and Emu Last year I was approached by a Melbourne woman concerning her continued attempts to gain fair compensation for herself and her children for the death of her husband in 1966. The woman’s late husband. William Jones had been a member of the Army from 1952 to 1965 when he was discharged as medially unfit for military service. He died of carcinoma nine months later in 1966 at the age of 39. Mrs Jones says that her husband was sent on a secret mission for several months from his home base at Puckapunyal to Woomera in South Australia in late 1953. She says that his crew took a tank to be placed in the blast of an atomic explosion.

She believes that after the explosion he went back to bring the tank out but it did not work; so he remained in the blast area for two days waiting for parts. There is evidence to support her story in the book Blast the Bush by Len Beadell. It is the story of the first atomic test at Emu on 15 October 1953. Mr Beadell says that a Centurion tank was transported to Emu and placed close to the bomb with a dummy inside to test the effects of the atomic blast. I believe that Mrs Jones’ claims should be examined and investigated. After her husband’s death Mrs Jones applied for compensation for herself and her five children on his behalf. After a long battle she was finally awarded compensation in 1974. under the Compensation (Australian Government Employees) Act. The delegate of the Commissioner for Employees Compensation determined that the disease William Jones had suffered from constituted a disease due to the nature of his employment with the Army.

I want to stress that aspect It was a metastatic carcinoma of bone. He also determined that William Jones death resulted from a disease due to the nature of his employment. I seek leave to have these two determinations incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The documents read as follows –

COMPENSATION (AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES ) ACT I 971-1973 William Charles Jones, also known as William Cameron JONES Ex 34221 Warrant Officer Department of Defence (Army Office) In the matter of the claim of William Charles JONES also known as William Cameron JONES for compensation in respect of muscle weakness upper and lower limbs DETERMINATION 1. on the evidence before me including specialist medical opinion I find that the condition of metastatic carcinoma bone and carcinomatous neuropathy suffered by the said William Charles Jones also known as William Charles Jones constituted a disease due to the nature of his employment by the Department of Defence ( Army Office) within the meaning of section 10 of the Commonwealth Employees’ Compensation Act 1930, as amended 2. NOW THEREFORE in pursuance of the provisions of the Compensation (Australian Government Employees) Act 1971-1973 including Sections 4 ( 2 ) and 104 (1) of that Act I hereby determine: (a) the determination dated 30 Oct 1964 is hereby revoked. (b) the said William Charles Jones also known as William Charles Jones contracted a disease namely metastatic carcinoma of bone and carcinomatous neuropathy in circumstances under which the Department of Defence (Army Office) would have been liable to pay compensation under the Commonwealth Employees’ Compensation Act 1930 as amended, and the Department of Defence (Army Office) is therefore liable to pay compensation in respect of the said disease in accordance with the provisions of the Compensation (Australian Government Employees) Act 1971-1973. D E RUMBLE Delegate of the Commissioner for Employee’s Compensation 2 April 1974 COMPENSATION (AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES) ACT 1971-1973 William Cameron JONES ( Deceased) also known as William Charles JONES-Warrant Officer – Department of Defence (Army Office ) In the matter of the claim of Audrey Beagle JONES for compensation in respect of the death of William Cameron JONES also known as William Charles JONES formerly Warrant Officer Department of Defence (Army Office) DETERMINATION ( 1 ) on the evidence before me I now find that the death of the said William Cameron Jones also known as William Charles Jones on 9 January 1966 resulted from a disease due to the nature of his employment by the Department of Defence (Army Office) within the meaning of section 10 of the Commonwealth Employees ‘ Compensation Act 1930 as amended ( 2 ) NOW THEREFORE in pursuance of the provisions of the Compensation (Australian Government Employees) Act 1971- 1973 including sections 4 (2) and 104 (1) of that Act I hereby determine : (a) the determination dated 5 May 1972 is hereby revoked (b) the death of the said William Cameron Jones resulted from a disease in circumstances which the Department of Defence (Army Office) would have been liable to pay compensation under the Commonwealth Employees’ Compensation Act 1930 as amended (c) the Department of Defence (Army Office) is therefore liable to pay compensation in accordance with the provisions of the Compensation (Government Employees) Act 1971- 1973 (d) the dependants of the said William Cameron Jones also known as William Charles Jones are: Audrey Bessie Jones widow Terrence William Jones born 13 July 1954 Leanne Patricia Jones daughter born 3 January 1959 Tracy Darlene Jones daughter born 29 October 1962 and Rick Cameron Jones son born 29 October 1962 (e) the amount of compensation payable to the said Audrey Bessie Jones in accordance with the provisions of sections 43 (3) and 104 (4) of the Compensation (Australian Government Employees) Act 1971-1973 is $8,600 (f). the amounts of compensation payable in accordance with sections 5(1), 43(5) and 104(8)of the Compensation (Australian Government Employees) Act 1971- 1973 (i) in respect of Terrence William Jones are $2.25 (two dollars twenty five cents) per week from 10 January 1966 until 8 November 1967. $2.45 per week from 9 November 1967 until 2 December 1968, $2.50 per week from 3 December 1968 until 23 June l970 and $2.80 per week from 24 June 1970 until 13 July 1970. (ii) in respect of Leanne Patricia, Tracy Darlene Jones and Rick Cameron Jones, are $2.25 per week each from 10 January 1966 until 8 November 1967, $2.45 per week each from 9 November 1967 until 2 December 1968, $2.50 per week each from 3 December 1968 until 23 June 1970, $2.80 per week each from 24 June 1970 until 24 May 1971, and $5.00 per week each from 25 May 1971 until a date to be determined by the Commissioner or his Delegate. and I further determine: (i) the amount of $8,600 shall be Paid in a lump sum to the said Audrey Bessie Jones; and (ii) unless otherwise directed by the Commissioner or his Delegate, the weekly amount payable in respect of Terrence William Jones, Leanne Patricia Jones, Tracey Darlene Jones and Rick Cameron Jones shall be paid to the said Audrey Bessie Jones (g) the amount Payable in accordance with the provisions of sections 44 and 104 ( 10) of the Compensation (Australian Government Employees) Act 1971-1973 in respect of funeral expenses is $120 and the said amount shall be paid to the said Audrey Bessie Jones. D E RUMBLE Delegate of the Commissioner for Employees’ Compensation Mr UREN – I thank the House. Let us examine the evidence these documents present.

The delegate has determined that some factor in William Jones ‘ Army work caused him to get this cancer. If Mrs Jones’ story is accurate then we can conclude only that this factor was radiation at Emu. (South Australian Nuclear Test Site). If her story is denied by the authorities then we must also be told what was the factor that led to the delegate’s determination. But the evidence as it stands suggests that William Jones was a victim of radiation at Emu and that this was reluctantly admitted even within the bureaucracy. One of the features which stands out in this case is the frustration and secrecy which confronted Mrs Jones throughout her struggle. William Jones tried to get compensation for his illness before he died, but failed. Mrs Jones says that she then first sought compensation as far back as 1968, but from the start she was hampered by secrecy. Everyone associated with her late husband’s trip to Woomera had been told to keep quiet. They were too scared to say too much and the Army was not about to offer any information. That is the sad situation in these sorts of cases.

The Army had little concern for Mrs Jones and the children she was struggling to bring up. She persisted. despite knock backs. until 1974 when she won the determinations to which I have referred. Eight years after her husband’s death a lump sum of $8.600 and small weekly payments for each child were awarded. and I am pleased to see that the Minister for Finance ( Mr Eric Robinson) who is sitting at the table. is listening intently to this speech. But the Army then haggled for three and a half years over how much should be paid for William Joneses medical expenses and lost wages. The amount of $585 that was awarded is still disputed by Mrs Jones. But 12 years after her husband ‘s death she has had enough. Mrs Jones still feels that her husband ‘s life was worth more than the compensation she received in 1974. Why has Mrs Jones had to battle so long for fair compensation? Why has there been so much delay and frustration? These questions should be answered. We also must ask how many other people who worked on the weapons tests have cancer. How many of them have sought compensation? How many have been too intimidated to try?

There is evidence that other people have been affected in. 1977 1 was approached on behalf of a group of former Commonwealth police who had worked at Maralinga in the 1950s and 1960s. I was told of four of their colleagues who had died of cancer and two others who were dying of cancer. At that time I made the information public in a Press statement. I have since been informed that these people know of others who worked at Maralinga and who are now suffering from cancer. There have been other disturbing reports in the Press. In 1978 I asked the then Minister for Health to institute a follow-up health study among all those who had worked at Maralinga during the weapons tests. This is what had been done in the United States. But he refused with the stock reply that the monitoring procedures were stringent and no one was exposed to dangerous radiation. I have since asked him to explain in what way the situation differed from the United States weapons tests but he has failed to answer that. I have also asked the Minister for Administrative Services (Mr John McLeay) for details of the health of former Commonwealth police who were stationed at Maralinga. He also has refused to follow up that matter. 1 seek leave to incorporate in the Hansard those questions and the answers from the Ministers.

Leave granted.

The documents read as follows: Atomic Tests: Radiation (Question No. 921 ) Mr Uren asked the Health Minister upon notice April 1978: ( 1) Has his attention been drawn to the United States Government follow-up study on personnel who were involved in their past atomic testing programs. ( 2 ) Will the Australian Government institute a similar inquiry amongst all persons who worked at Maralinga, South Australia , during the years 1950 to 1965 in order to ascertain what ill-effects they may have suffered. Mr Hunt -The answer lo the honourable member’s question is as follows (l) yes (2) All personnel working at Maralinga were subject to stringent health procedures. Their activities in the field were strictly controlled and they were constantly monitored to ensure that they were not exposed to dangerous radiation.. The majority of those who were conducting and monitoring the tests at Maralinga were UK personnel. Any follow up studies on those persons would be a matter for the UK Government to decide upon.

Because of the stringent monitoring procedures undertaken at the time and the fact that they were not exposed to dangerous radiation, there is no proposal to institute studies on Australians who were in support of the UK activities at Maralinga from the rear areas.

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Question No. 3515

Mr Uren asked the Minister for Administrative Services upon notice on 27 March 1979: ( I ) How many Commonwealth policemen were stationed at Maralinga and its immediate surrounds over the period of the British weapons testing program. (2 ) How many of these policemen have (a) since contracted cancer or leukaemia and (b) died of these diseases Mr McLeay – The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: (1), (2)(a) and (b) Having regard to the expenditure of resources involved in searching out records that are between 14 and 27 years old, and the ensuing problem of tracing ex members of the Commonwealth police who could be located in a number of countries, I do not think it would be appropriate for me to authorise the considerable expenditure necessary to search out and check the detailed information required to answer the question by the honourable member. If however, the honourable member has any specific information, I would be happy to discuss the matter further with him.

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Question No. 2746

Mr Uren asked the Minister for Health upon notice on 9 November 1978: ( 1)is he able to say whether the health risks encountered United States personnel during the United States atomic weapons testing program were greater than those encountered by British and Australian personnel at Emu, Monte Bello and Maralinga. (2) Is he also able to say whether the monitoring procedures undertaken by the US Government during its weapons testing program were less stringent than those undertaken at Emu, Monte Bello and Maralinga; if so, in what way did the procedures differ. Mr Hunt – The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: (1) and (2) My Department has no detailed knowledge of the health risks encountered by United States personnel or the monitoring procedures employed during the United States atomic weapons testing program and it is not possible to make a comparison with the tests conducted within Australia by the British. However, for nuclear tests conducted within Australia by Britain the most stringent safeguards to the health of personnel were implemented at every level.

Mr UREN – I thank the House. So the Government can give no greater assurance about the health effects of the weapons tests than its tired old rhetoric. The Government says that the risks were too small and monitoring too stringent for there to be anything to worry about. The United States Atomic Energy Commission has said that for years, but people in the United Slates are continuing to agitate. Many exmilitary personnel have been located and found to be suffering from the effects of leukaemia and cancers. The evidence indicates that the incidence of these diseases is higher than normal. Ten people in the United States are receiving compensation for what they have suffered. I am now asking the Government, through the Minister at the table, to reexamine Mrs Jones’ case and to award adequate compensation if the facts I have outlined are as stated. The Government should be more compassionate. The mount of compensation awarded to Mrs Jones is mean and miserable. Not only should the Government have another look at Mrs Jones’ case but it should also undertake a thorough investigation into the health of those people who worked on weapons testing in the 50s and 60s. If a government has made a mistake, whether it be the United States Government, the United Kingdom Government or the Australian Government, it is about time they said: ‘ we were wrong.. Let us now correct our mistakes ‘. The real issue is one of compassionate treatment by the Government. The Government should give consideration to these people particularly those who are suffering so much.

I hope that the Minister for Administrative Services (Mr McLeay ) who is responsible for police matters and who has just entered the chamber, will take cognisance of what I have said.

MR DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Drummond) Order! The honourable member’s time has expired. It now being 12 45 pm., in accordance with Standing Order 106 the debate is interrupted, and I put the question: That grievances be noted Question resolved in the affirmative.

– My question is directed to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and may also bring some response from the Minister representing the Minister for Health. What plans has the Government for initiating inquiries into the deaths and illnesses of Aboriginals and white people who were exposed to the fall-out of the Maralinga atomic tests? According to reports received by Dr T. Cutter, who is heading an Alice Springs based Aboriginal health service team, many Aboriginals died immediately after the tests. Will the Minister consider holding a full inquiry into the short and long term effects on the health of the people living in the north of South Australia at the time of the atomic tests and check on the reports of mass burials of Aboriginals?

Senator CHANEY – Needless to say, this matter has been of concern to me. The concern predates the recent spate of publicity which related to Dr Cutter’s visit to northern South Australia and, of course, to a series of articles in, I think, the Advertiser in South Australia. At present the Commonwealth is seeking information on the matters which have been raised. Perhaps it is worth quoting Mr Toyne, one of the people who has been interviewed in this area and who is an employee of the Pitjantjatjara Council. I refer to his comment on radio the other morning.. When asked about possible deaths he said: all I can say is that it is quite speculative. We are still in the area of speculation. We are still seeking information. Over the past month or so l have written on a couple of occasions to the Minister of Health in South Australia seeking information from the South Australian Health Commission. I am not in a position to give a final response but I think my colleague Senator Carrick has something to say because the question also impinges on his area of responsibility.

Senator CARRICK – The atom testing events at Maralinga over the period involved a series of departments. My department was asked recently whether it would co-ordinate a review by a series of departments ranging over possible threats to any people, be they Aborigines or non Aborigines. An interdepartmental committee has been collecting evidence on the matter. I hope that I will be able to make a statement here tomorrow indicating the direction that the Government wishes to take in this matter. If any people in the community feel that they have direct evidence or believe that they have been affected in any way, they should come forward. They will certainly be given sympathetic examination. My understanding is that something like 2,000 Service people were involved throughout the period. I understood also that the area was patrolled during the tests to ensure that nomadic Aborigines did not come within something like 270 kilometres of the tests. As far as is known, and this information could be imperfect, only one incident of Aborigines coming within the test area was known and that involved four persons who did suffer some mild contamination. Expert attention was given to them immediately, and by the simple process of bathing the contamination was removed. That is not to say that that is the definitive answer. I hope to add something more to that tomorrow.

– Minister for National Development and Energy) – by leave – The Government has given careful consideration to recent expressions of concern that Australian personnel were exposed to high levels of radiation during the atomic weapons test programs conducted by British authorities at Maralinga, Emu and Monte Bello, and to calls for an Inquiry into the current health of the Australian personnel involved. To date eight known compensation claims have been received for consideration under Commonwealth compensation legislation in connection with the Maralinga, Emu and Monte Bello tests. Three of these claims are presently under investigation and compensation has been granted in respect of two of the five which have been considered. In one case compensation was granted for a psychological disorder resulting from the aggravation of a pre-existing condition, and in the other case compensation was granted on the grounds that there could have been a connection between an officer’s death from cancer and his exposure to radioactive dust during his duty in connection with the Emu atomic tests in 1953.1 also understand that during the past decade about six claims attributing the onset of cancer to atomic weapons tests in Australia have been examined by British authorities. In none of those cases have the authorities found evidence of exposure to nuclear radiation significantly above the natural background level or that cancer arose from other than natural causes. The Government is satisfied on the basis of reports submitted at the time that all personnel working at Maralinga were subject to stringent health procedures and that their activities in the field were strictly controlled and monitored to ensure that they were not exposed to dangerous radiation. On the basis of evidence presently available, the Government is not convinced that the need has been established at this time for a full survey of the health of those Australians who were involved. However, we fully appreciate the concern and uncertainty of many of the Australian personnel who believe that they may have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation and may now or in the future suffer resulting injury or disability.

The Government will ensure that full consideration continues to be given to all claims for compensation put to it under the Compensation ( Commonwealth Government Employees) Act. To facilitate this consideration, persons who are concerned about the possibility of injury having been suffered as a result of involvement in the tests are invited to come forward for interview and, if appropriate, medical examination. In the first instance inquiries should be addressed to the Secretary of the Department of National Development and Energy in Canberra who will direct inquiries to appropriate authorities in the Department of Health, the Department of Defence, the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the Department of Social Security. Our inquiries to date have identified only one recorded instance of Aboriginals entering a contaminated area. This occurred at Maralinga in May 1957, involving four persons. After appropriate washing procedures were implemented. radiation safety officials concluded that there was no possibility of any radiation injury having occurred. Nevertheless the Government is investigating allegations that other Aboriginals may have been exposed to radiation in the test areas. Information is being sought on any radiation associated health problems amongst those Aboriginals. We are also aware that investigations are being conducted by Aboriginal organisations into reports of Aboriginals in the north of South Australia being affected by radiation following the Emu atomic tests in October 1953. These investigations will complement our own inquiries and the Government invites those conducting investigations to advise the Government of any evidence of radiation injury they might find. The Government for its part is conducting a specific review of contemporary records to see what evidence there might be of the incidents reported. The Government is concerned at suggestions that some Australian personnel who believe that they may have been exposed to dangerous radiation, or believe they know of others who may have been so exposed, may be inhibited in coming forward because of uncertainty as to the present security significance of their involvement in the atomic weapons tests. Their continuing sense of responsibility in this master does them credit but the particular circumstances of any possible exposure – as distinct from information about the tests themselves – should not be of any security significance. If these persons remain in any doubt, however, they are urged to contact the Department of Defence for advice. In pursuing its investigations into this matter, the Government will seek the expert advice and experience of the Australian Ionising Radiation Advisory Council and of the National Health and Medical Research Council. I commend the statement to the Senate. I move: That the Senate take note of the statement

Senator CAVANAGH (South Australia) ( 12. 56pm)- I wish to speak to the motion that the Senate take note of the statement because I think it is necessary to say one or two things. I commend the Government for its policy at this stage of payment of compensation to those people who can prove some ill effects as a result of exposure to radiation during their service at Maralinga. But there is a much bigger question which arises in relation to this payment of compensation. These people are paid under the Compensation (Commonwealth Government Employees) Act, which means that the onus of proof is on the applicant. The figures to date indicate that there is a greater incidence of cancer among those people who worked at Maralinga than in people in other sections of the community. How one proves that the cancer that one may have has resulted from employment at Maralinga I do not know. But it is reasonable to accept, I think, that if the incidence of cancer is out of all proportion there is some significant connection between the employment and the disease. I think greater consideration should be given to the fact that these people were employed at Maralinga and that as a result of their employment there they have had diseases which could arise from an over-exposure to radiation. Although the Minister’s statement deals with those who were employed at Maralinga and who were on the site at the time, there are other considerations to be taken into account. There may be other people who were outside Maralinga who could have been affected. The question then arises whether they have been suitably compensated or whether compensation should be paid.

Even now the Government is considering the situation of a group of Aboriginals at Ernabella in relation to this question. In Queensland a body known as the Atomic Veterans Association has been set up by exservicemen. This body has been formed by the members of the Queensland branch of the Returned Services League and is now requesting a full government inquiry into the tests. This request is supported by the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Public Service unions, the Australian Council of Churches, Aboriginal groups and politicians. I ask the Government whether, rather than paying compensation to a person who can prove a connection with exposure to radiation, there should not be a full investigation into the possible ramifications of this exposure and who may be affected by it. The Adelaide Advertiser has published a series of articles in relation to this matter. It has received much information from a resident of South Australia who has always claimed that he was injured as a result of his occupation at Maralinga. He could never get recognition from Federal Government departments until his case was taken up by the Advertiser. I believe he is now receiving a pension from the Department of Veterans ‘ Affairs. As a result of this publicity, letters have been received by the advertiser from many people throughout Australia who were at Maralinga.

These people complain that they have suffered illness as a result of their employment there. There were seven tests carried out at Maralinga, two at Emu and three at Monte Bello off the Western Australian coast. Nine of those explosions were in the kiloton area, equivalent to the detonation of tens of thousands of tons of TNT. The survey done by the Advertiser on this matter discovered that among those at Maralinga who could have been endangered were Australian and British military personnel, Commonwealth police, civil workers and Aboriginals. They could have been exposed to high levels of radiation Although it is said that there were only four Aboriginals in the area of Maralinga, I do not know how anyone could police the miles and miles of gibber desert and know who was in the area. Aboriginals periodically go walkabout on tribal land and return to their home country. As this is tribal land, I would say that it would be impossible to police. . Sitting suspended from 1 to 2.15 p.m. ( Quorum reformed)

Senator CAVANAGH – Before the suspension of the sitting, I was discussing the Government’s attitude to the Maralinga incident. I was referring to the personnel employed at Maralinga. I stated -and I said this generously – that the Government is prepared to pay compensation to anyone who can prove that his present bad state of health is associated with the Maralinga incident. I take it that it would accept proof not on the basis of beyond reasonable doubt but on the basis of probability. But the compensation payments are small. They are not sufficient. This matter is something about which we know little and it needs full investigation. I lend my support to the Returned Services League in Queensland which has set up the Radioactive Defence Force, with the support of many bodies to seek a full inquiry into the ramifications of the Maralinga testing and into suitable payment to anyone whose health may have suffered as a result of those tests. But we do know from the Adelaide Advertiser reports of evidence stated and names given that at least 52 of the 2,000 Australians who took part in the Maralinga tests died of cancer and that seven others are living with the disease at the present time. Is this a higher proportion than the normal death rate among Australians from cancer? If it is should we not have an investigation to establish the incidence of cancer? It may have spread to a further area than the actual area of Maralinga. I state the truth when I say that the cost to Australia and the health of Australians of the development of the British nuclear arsenal is still obscure and that is for reasons relating to security in Australia. If the Government is sincere, it should release all information so that people are not afraid to speak because of security arrangements. The statement by the Minister for National Development and Energy (Senator Carrick) today was that, unless security was involved, there was no reason why people could not disclose to the authorities their sickness and their belief that their sickness was due to the Maralinga test. If there were any doubt, they should contact the Army. I think that there should be an investigation with a guarantee of immunity, to anyone who knows anything about Maralinga and the dangers to people’s lives to state that information publicly. The Adelaide Advertiser published the statement of an Royal Australian Air Force corporal who was at the test site between 1962 and 1965. He alleged that Australian Security Intelligence Organisation officers had warned him not to talk about what he had seen after he had said in a newspaper interview that he had helped to bury large amounts of radioactive waste. The same person stated that Aboriginals had wandered freely through the test site. He further stated that there were six radioactive sites within a kilometre of the Maralinga camp where 800 to 900 personnel were living. Should honourable senators not have the facts on this matter? The Government states that there was only one known incident. Four Aboriginals were cured by bathing and washing off the radioactive material. Here is a man who, for security reasons is afraid and who would be prepared to say that there was a large number of people wandering freely through the area. There were 800 to 900 people living in the area affected by radioactivity at Maralinga. Why can he not be given the freedom in the Minister’s statement to state these beliefs publicly and give details of where the incidents occurred. The radioactive material was not confined to Maralinga. There were many mistakes in the observations, and many mistakes in the forecasts as to where the winds would blow the radioactive clouds that resulted from the explosion. In one Incident associated with the Emu test in October 1953, 45 Aboriginals were enveloped in a rolling black mist for several hours, following an atomic bomb explosion. Within 48 hours. they had uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhoea. Soon after, a skin rash like measles covered their bodies. The Aboriginals were left too sick even to gather food for themselves and almost starved. This is the incident which Dr T. M. Cutter is now examining.

There is not only the Aboriginals’ statement regarding what they term ‘the grey mist’, which they thought was a god ‘s punishment set down upon them, but also the statement of Mrs E. L. Giles, a former owner of the Melbourne Hills Station in the far north of South Australia which verifies this. She states that her husband and two Aboriginal employees at the station died of cancer some years later. Is this not justification for investigation? While Dr Cutter has gone to investigate and report, there is nothing in the Minister’s statement to say that there is a claim for them because they never worked on the Maralinga site. I think most people in the Senate chamber will know Jim Lester, from Alice Springs, who has been interested in Aboriginal affairs very well. He is the blind interpreter for the Pitjantjatjara community. He has been blind for many years. We saw the interview with him – he was a pathetic sight – in which he made a statement regarding the time when he was a child, when his people were in hiding from the grey mist and how he looked at it. In fact, he stared at it. He is totally blind today. Whether his blindness is because of exposure to radiation, I do not know. Another mishap – the third test at Maralinga – resulted in widespread fallout over Adelaide and nearby countryside increasing previous radiation levels in the area by 900 times. In Adelaide, the radioactive increase was 900 times the usual level of radioactivity. Should this not be investigated? The Commonwealth, whilst not disclosing the facts, is not ignorant of the facts which are only becoming apparent some 20 years later. The matter was disclosed at the time in a suppressed report on the tests. The public does not have any knowledge of that report, it was written in 1957 by Dr Hedley Marston, a former director of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s Division of Biochemistry and a general nutritionist. Apparently the original report by Dr Marston was censored when it was first published in a limited circulation scientific journal in 1958. The original copy which is held at the Academy of Science in Canberra contains his full findings. Dr Marston died in 1965. What was his full report? Although it was censored it was suppressed and we cannot see it. We cannot see its comments on security, the effect of the radioactive material and the effect of the passage of this material across South Australian, Victoria and New South Wales; we are not permitted to see the report. The official statement from the Government was issued at the time in the names of either Professor L. H. Martin or Professor E. W. Titterton, both members of the Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee, or in the name of the then Minister for Supply. It stressed that there was no danger to mainland Australia. If that is so and there was no danger. why is Dr Hedley Marston’s report still being suppressed today? Senator Jessop – Who was the doctor who made the comment about Maralinga the other day?

Senator CAVANAGH – I do not know to whom you are referring. I do know Miss Shirley Allen, a former CSIRO researcher and personal assistant to Dr Marston, stated that the news of the fallout over Adelaide was deliberately suppressed. ln 1958 the Australian Weapons Safely Committee released a paper which admitted that there had been radioactive fallout over Adelaide and which said that only a small quantity of low activity material settled over South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. That statement was published in the Adelaide Advertiser, but we cannot get Dr Marston’s report. This is the very important aspect. There are still facts which this statement of the Minister does not permit us to view. In another incident it is alleged that scientists lost a radioactive cloud after the fourth .Maralinga atomic bomb explosion on 22 October 1956. The bomb was detonated at five minutes past midnight so as not to offend South Australians by exploding it on a Sunday. Despite immense efforts by Royal Australian Air Force Canberra bombers to track radioactive dust clouds the missing cloud was not located until several hours after daylight. The cloud which was supposed to travel east from Maralinga and pass away from Adelaide over the Tasman Sea was found moving towards Darwin. That is the incident which the Aboriginals at Ernabella say could have affected them. In another report about 30 Australian soldiers and a small band of technicians were exposed to highly radio active cobalt 60 radiation while cleaning up Maralinga after the bomb tests of 1957. The soldiers had been equipped with only the basic protective gear, respirator overalls, cloth gloves and metal scoops for the clean-up operation and had not been made fully aware of the task. These are some of the matters that have been brought to light. I am relying on newspaper reports for these details. The newspaper reports published the names of the 52 people who died of cancer. They published the names of the seven people who are now living, who have cancer and who worked in that area. Only now it has come to light that radioactive material was found to be over Adelaide at 900 times more than the normal dose of radiation. For the Minister to say that there was no further danger resulting from that incident than the radiation we absorb from the earth’s surface at present is not correct. Therefore, we must have some clear investigation. The Aboriginals are deserving of consideration. We must find out whether that incident is the cause of the blindness that one can track from Emu through to the north of Australia and to Darwin. There is more incidence of blindness among Aboriginals – what the medical profession is treating as trachoma – in that area than there is outside that passage way. That is the position.. Should not this be investigated? The Aboriginal tribes from the area have since been shifted to Yalata on the west coast of South Australia. When the Commonwealth made the decision to revert control of the site to the State Government it moved the Aboriginals in the area to Yalata. The mission at Yalata dismantled the materials on the site and took them to Yalata to build sheds and homes and so on at Yalata. The British took the radioactive material back to Britain for disposal. On investigation they found that Maralinga was still a radioactive area. Watchmen still live in that area. Security guards see that no one enters the area. There is still some danger there. The danger is in the material on the property that is now at Yalata where Aboriginals are living. I suppose that Britain’s ability to survive in the future was more important than the lives of a few Aboriginals and the suffering they may go through. This matter involves not only Maralinga, it is also a question of how careful we should be in the future of atomic explosions and the mining of Mineral elements that are radioactive. It is a question of how careful we should be in protecting the shores of Australia. We should have no defence installations and we should take no action that would warrant an adversary’s s attack upon Australia with the use of radioactive material. We do not know the damage that could be caused. These are the questions I am raising. It is not a matter of the Government saying to someone that if they can prove their case the Government will pay them compensation. That is the cheap was out. Let us see who suffered as a result of Maralinga and let us see that it does not happen again

Senator MELZER (Victoria) (2.34) – I wish to speak to the statement put down by the Government to take up some of the points Senator CAVANAGH has raised and to raise some other matters. One of the things that terrify me in this report and in so many of the reports we are getting lately is the air of cover-up. We are told to accept assurances that all is well. We are told that everything is under control and that the procedures we are using are quite safe. We have been told that about things like agent orange, Maralinga and nuclear power. When communities showed concern over matters such as 2 4 5-T they were told that there was no problem, that there was no connection with illness and that there was no connection with genetic damage. When we found Australian Forestry Commission workmen using the material and becoming very ill and it was obvious that this was directly resulting from the chemicals they were using the authorities admitted that there could be some problem and that they would look into the matter. When it was alleged here that agent orange was used, especially brewed agent orange was used with lethal quantities of dioxin the Minister said that Australians were not affected. When he was pressed he said: we did not use it . When he was pressed further he said: we only used a little of it . Now we have a full blown inquiry into how much damage has been done to our servicemen by the use of that material. There was strong evidence at the time that it was lethal. Evidence now shows that medical officers knew of the effects at that time and were told to include on the medical records of the men using the material that they had been involved because they expected to find that the men were affected by It. That was 50 years after we knew about dioxin and its cancer causing property. Government members have stood up here and told us that nuclear power was safe. They have followed the Sir Ernest Titterton line that it is the safest, cheapest form of energy the world has ever known. Then we had the Three Mile Island incident and all the world now knows that nuclear power is far from safe and that nuclear engineers just do not know how to cope with the problems and they have not been able to cope with them. We now come back to Maralinga. In 1977 we were told that there were no problems; yet in February 1977 Professor De Bruin in Adelaide was calling on the Department of Defence to give details of any material buried and the possible side effects of the tests. Why was he concerned? He was concerned because he had received an increasing number of reports from people who had worked in the Maralinga area and who were ill. He received an increasing number of reports of contaminated material that had been distributed from the site at Maralinga. But at that time we were told that there were no problems and we were not to worry as the tests had been safe and the people of Australia had nothing to worry about. Then we found that there was plutonium on the site. At that stage Sir Ernest Titterton said that the tests had been monitored and that there was no plutonium there. Nonetheless in October 1978 the British arrived and took the plutonium away. We are told that now we are safe. But now we find that a report written in 1957 showed there was widespread fallout but the report was suppressed.

As Senator Cavanagh says, Dr Marston, a former director of the division of biochemistry of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation who should have known what he was talking about – put out a paper which showed that the fallout from Maralinga and Monte Bello atomic tests was widespread. The report stated: Marston and his co-workers provided one facet of a program to monitor radiation from the tests. They collected the thyroid glands of grazing animals from sites which were considered likely to be traversed by plumes from the Maralinga explosions and analyzed for the presence of Iodine 131. They – “….concluded from results of the complete survey that extensive areas of Australia have been contaminated and some of the more heavy precipitation [of fallout] occurred on terrain situated over 1500 miles from the site of the explosion in areas more or less thickly populated.” Despite that report having been written and despite the fact that it was available to the people who were concerned or connected with the Atomic Weapons Tests Safety Committee in October 1956 Professor Ernest Titterton deputy head of the Committee was quoted as having advised the Minister for Supply as follows: There is no danger or significant fallout outside the immediate target area. But he had been privy to the report that had been suppressed. At the same time,. following the first of the four Maralinga tests, the chairman of the Safely Committee, Professor Martin – later Sir Leslie Martin – said: “There is no possible risk of danger now or at any future time to any person, stock or property. All dangerous fallout has been deposited and the remaining fallout is completely innocuous. Measurements taken in the afternoon and during the night …. by aircraft and on the ground by mobile units, all confirm the scientists predictions that the operation would be carried out with complete safely….” Dr Marston found that the effects of the explosion could be detected in animals grazing in a pen in a band of terrain about 1,000 miles wide stretching west to east across the continent. Results from his paper differed markedly from the Press reports at the time. As Senator Cavanagh said, the paper showed that fallout over Adelaide was of importance. It stated: Fallout from the secondary cloud is not denied but rather described as a southerly diffusion of slowly settling material of low activity detected over South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.” That is a long way from the area that Professor Titterton told us was the significant fallout area. The paper went on: “Material in the cloud from the fourth Maralinga test was known to diffuse and settle over a very wide front to the east of the trajectory which passed through the Northern Territory. That may have been of some comfort to Dr Marston but in the 20 years since, more and more research has shown that any radioactivity dangerous and that continuing radioactivity is more dangerous. An unknown number of people have been affected by this radioactivity. Other areas in the world have been assured in the same way as Sir Ernest Titterton and Professor Martin and the Committee assured us that we were in no danger.

In Colorado, in the United States of America, down wind from the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Establishment, people have a substantially higher cancer rate than Denver residents, who were not exposed to plutonium emissions from the plant. In a report in 1979 the Director of the Health Department Jeffersen County, Dr Carl Johnson, a physician epidemiologist as well as County Health Director and Assistant Clinical Professor of Preventative Medicine at the at the University of Colorado, said that he found that men living up to 13 miles downwind of the plant had a testicular cancer rate of 140 per cent higher than would be expected on the basis of cancer statistics for Denver area residents. He found that the incidence of throat and liver cancer was 60 per cent higher downwind of the plant. He found that the incidence of leukaemia. lung and colon cancer was 40 per cent higher. In this area he found the overall cancer rate was 24 per cent higher than expected in men and 10 per cent higher than expected in women. In an area 18 to 24 miles downwind, the overall cancer rates were eight per cent higher in men and four per cent higher in women. Dr Johnson said that the higher incidence of testicular cancer in plutonium-exposed men was particularly significant because the scientists employed at Rocky Flats have shown in animal studies that ingested plutonium tends to collect in the testes.

Dr Johnson said that on statistics for testicular cancer in the Denver area he would have expected to find 17 cases of testicular cancer among men living downwind from the plant. Instead he found 40 cases. The higher cancer rate showed a direct relationship to an increasing concentration of plutonium in the soil. Higher rates of cancer of the tongue, stomach, ovary, brain, pancreas and thyroid were also found in this plutonium exposed population. In 1957 afire at that plant resulted in a release of plutonium in amounts 19,000 times the present acceptable maximum set by the Department of Energy. Twenty-two years later cancers are showing up. In 1956 we had major explosions of atomic bombs on Monte Bello Island and at Maralinga. The men who were involved in those experiments were not given special clothing and did not take precautions in any way. On record is the evidence of a man who flew one of the Canberra bombers through the resultant clouds several times without wearing any sort of protective clothing. Three years later he found he had cancer of the thyroid. An engineer who assisted the Canadian engineers on the ground in a radiation detection unit has also given evidence. There was a contamination station. The job of the engineers was to move in and out of the contaminated area bringing materials and vehicles out so that they could be decontaminated or checked. He too found that he was suffering from cancer three years later. He was asked whether he wore protective clothing or breathing apparatus and he said he did not. During an interview he raised an interesting point. He said that when driving about 150 miles from Maralinga he came upon what he described as a fairly large village. His first thought was : “Why the hell are we living in tents when we have got a village here.”

He realised after going into the village and exploring the buildings that there were signs of contamination so he left the village. He was later told that the whole village had been abandoned because all of it was to some extent contaminated. Vehicles and other equipment had been left there because they were contaminated. He was asked how many people went to the village and whether it was known that the village existed. He replied: “Well l never knew until I arrived there and when I got back to roadside with the truck and my offsider, I told a couple of people there about the village and I was told it might be an idea to forget it because it had nothing to do with what we were into. But I know for a fact now that lots of other people the odd Sunday would grab a vehicle and fly up there and bits and pieces were being pilfered out of that area, such as electric radiators and refrigerators, a two way radio and various things I can think of that came down from that area.” The men involved at the time were not the only ones who suffered the effects of radiation and who came down with cancer. We do not know how much of the material that was contaminated went out of the area. We do not know where it went or what sort of effects it might have had. In other parts of the world there is evidence that wind borne contamination can cause cancer. We have evidence that material that has been contaminated cannot be used safely by human beings and that it might cause cancer. The report that was suppressed shows that the contamination from the experiments at Monte Bello and Maralinga had much wider consequences than we were led to believe. Right across the area, in western New South Wales and northern Victoria people have been concerned about the rates of cancer in some very small settlements in those areas. Nobody knew why in small areas of 2,000 or 2,500 people up to 50 people were suffering from cancer at about the same time. The only thing that connected those people was that they liked working in the open air.

They were farmers or gardeners. Some of those people felt six years ago that the cancer from which they were suffering might have had something to do with Maralinga. They pointed out to me personally that the prevailing winds in that area came from Maralinga. When the question was raised with scientists at the time they said they did not think it was possible. They did not think that Maralinga could have caused that sort of contamination. They thought it was more likely to have been caused by chemicals. Now that this report has come to light, now that diagrams show where the material was blown one cannot help wonder why such concentrated numbers of people are suffering from cancer. As Senator Cavanagh said I do not believe it is good enough for the Government to say now that it will have a selective inquiry. It should not say to people: if you feel you have suffered come forward and we will see what we can do about It. We will see whether some compensation might be paid. We will listen to your story. That is not nearly good enough. We want a full wide-ranging inquiry into the matter. For one thing we want to know why the report of the Government’s inquiry into the allegations of health effects resulting from atomic weapon tests was suppressed. What has it got to do with security? Every time a problem such as this arises we are told that we cannot inquire into it and that we cannot be told the facts because of security. What about the security of the people who have lived in the area for so long? What about the people who worked there? We will not uncover any extraordinary secrets now by inquiring into the matter. It is old hat. The world has moved past the sorts of atomic weapons that were tested then. Why can we not have an inquiry to show why the report was suppressed? What other material has been suppressed? What have been the results across the county of the fallout from those experiments? Where did the trucks, shovels and radios go? Who has been working in them and living beside them since because the Federal Government did not care enough to make sure they were buried or taken out of the way. The Government thought that because they were in the outback of South Australia it need not worry about them. What has happened to the Aboriginal people living in the centre of Australia? What has happened to the men and women who were involved in the area? What has happened to the people who lived in the area. I ask the Government to reconsider the matters it has raised in the statement it has put down today. I ask it to conduct a full and far-reaching inquiry for the sake of the health of the people of Australia. I ask it not to hide behind the excuse of security. I ask that there be no more cover-ups in this area. I ask it to get down to the truth once and for all of what really happened when we experimented at Maralinga and Monte Bello. I ask it to tell that to the people of Australia and to look after the health of the people who may have been contaminated. Debate (on motion by Senator Peter Baume) adjourned.

Mr Uren asked the Minister for Science and the Environment upon notice on 16 April 1980: ( 1 ) Does he propose to institute a study of radiological safety and future land use at the Emu atomic weapons test site in South Australia similar to the studies carried out for the Maralinga Range, South Australia and the Monte Bello Islands; if so, when will the study be completed. (2) If a study of the Emu site will not be instituted, why not. . Mr Thomson – The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: The Australian ionising Radiation Advisory Council has recently submitted to the government a report on radiological safety and future land use at the Emu atomic weapons test site. The report is currently being printed and will be tabled in the House as soon as it becomes available.

– For the information of honourable members I present a statement made in the Senate earlier today by the Minister for National Development and Energy (Senator Carrick) relating to allegations of radiation exposure and health effects resulting from atomic weapons tests.

Mr Uren asked the Minister for Defence upon notice on 1 April 1980: (1) Have any claims for compensation been received by his Department alleging that disease or disability resulted from employment at the British atomic weapons tests and subsequent experiments and cleanup operations in South Australia. If so how many (2) In each case what was the (a) date the claim was received by his Department and (b) cause of death or the nature of the disability (3) In how many cases was it alleged that radiation exposure resulted in death or disability (4) Which claims have been determined and in each case what was the determination Mr Killen – The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows ( 1 ) Seven claims for compensation received by my Department have been identified as relating to conditions allegedly contracted as a result of the British atomic tests held in Australia. In addition claim was referred to my Department for certain information relating to a claim lodged by the widow of an ex officer of the Bureau of Customs, Department of Business and Consumer Affairs It is possible that there could have been other claims, but if so they have not been readily identifiable as relating to atomic testing. (2) (3 ) and (4) Details of the individual claims are as follows: Claim 1 -Received from widow 30 August 1971. Condition claimed was for “carcinomatosis, exposure to radioactive dust’ Allegedly attributable to exposure to radioactive dust in the Woomera area. Claim was disallowed by the Commissioner for Employees Compensation on 5 May 1972, based on specialist medical opinion. An application for Judicial Review was lodged in February 1973, and as a result of the presentation of a further specialist medical opinion, the Commissioner for Employees’ Compensation revoked his previous determination of 5 May 1972 and determined in the claimant’s on 2 April 1974 that the death of her husband resulted from a disease namely carcinomatosis due to the nature of his employment by the Department of Defence (Army Office).

Claim 2 -Received on 23 March 1972 Condition claimed was for ‘nervous disorder – anxiety neurosis – Allegedly attributable to anxiety, tension and living conditions whilst engaged on decontamination duties at Maralinga Liability was accepted by the Commissioner for Employees’ Compensation on 13 July 1973 in respect of ‘chronic phobic anxiety state resulting from aggravation of a pre-existing agoraphobic syndrome ‘ Claim 3- Received on 6 June 1972 Condition claimed was for ‘malignant melanoma of the back’ Allegedly attributable to radiation exposure at Maralinga. Disallowed by the Commissioner for Employees’ Compensation on 26 November 1975 on the basis of specialist medical opinion. Claim 4 – Received on 18 August 1977 Condition claimed was for ‘chronic myeloid leukaemia’ Allegedly attributable to exposure to radiation whilst on seagoing duties 100 km off Monte Bello Island.

Disallowed by the Commissioner for Employees’ Compensation on 30 November 1979 on the basis of specialist medical opinion. Claim 5 Received on 4 May 1978 Condition claimed was for ‘ gout ‘ Allegedly attributable to radiation exposure to radiation at Maralinga. Disallowed by the Commissioner for Employees ‘ Compensation on 31 August 1979 on the basis of specialist medical opinion. Claim 6-Received on 19 March 1980 Condition claimed is for ‘ carcinoma of thyroid gland’ Allegedly attributable to exposure to radiation whilst on flying duties at Woomera. Claim being investigated Claim 7 -Received from widow on 27 March 1980 Condition claimed is for death resulting from ‘cancer of the oesophagus’ Allegedly attributable to exposure to radiation whilst at Woomera. Claim being investigated. Claim 8 – Received from widow by Department of Business Affairs – Bureau of Customs on 25 June 1979 (Referred to my Department for certain information) Condition claimed is for death resulting from ‘hepatic failure ( 1 week), carcinoma rectum, liver secondaries and bronchopneumonia’. Allegedly attributable to exposure to radiation whilst employed as Sub-collector of Customs at Onslow in 1956. Claim being investigated.

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ABORIGINES AT MARALINGA : EXPOSURE TO RADIATION (QUESTION NO. 5786)

Mr Uren asked the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs upon notice on 15 April 1980: ( 1 ) Has the Minister’s attention been drawn to statements reported in the Perth Daily News 27 December 1976 by Mr Patrick Connolly, a former Royal Air Force Corporal who served at Maralinga, SA, that many Aboriginal people walked across restricted areas contaminated by radiation and when found there they wen detained and put through a decontamination process that lasted 2 to 3 days and that R A F. personnel were always bringing them in. (2) Has the Department of Aboriginal Affairs investigated these claims, if so, what are the results of the investigation (3) Is there any evidence which suggests that Aboriginal people have suffered disease or disability as a consequence of exposure to radiation resulting from British atomic weapons tests in South Australia Mr Viner – The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question ( 1 ) I have now read the report in the Perth Daily News of 27 December 1976 (2) See reply of the Minister for National Development and Energy to Question No 5782 (3) No. But I have written to the South Australian Minister for Health asking whether there is any such evidence and the Minister has announced that a review of the medical records for 1973-1979 for people living in the remote reserves, Yalata and the North-West Reserve had shown no abnormal incidence rates for birth deformities or cancer. However the South Australian Health Commission is setting up an investigation in the remote reserves directed at defining any trend of increased incidence of radiation related diseases.

Mr Uren asked the Minister representing the Minister for National Development and Energy, upon notice, on 1 April 1980: (1) Has the Minister’s attention been drawn to statements reported in the Perth Daily News of 27 December 1976 by Mr Patrick Connolly, a former Royal Air Force Corporal who served at Maralinga, SA, that many Aboriginal people walked across restricted areas contaminated by radiation, that when found there, they were detained and put through a decontamination process that lasted 2 to 3 days and that RAF personnel were always bringing them in. (2) Can the Minister say whether Aboriginal people were detained for decontamination at the Maralinga Range; if so, how many persons were detained. (3) Were any measures taken to monitor the subsequent health of these persons; if so, what measures were taken. Mr Anthony- The Minister for National Development and Energy has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question: (1) yes I have read the report in the Perth Daily News of 27.12.1976. (2) See reply of the Minister for National Development to Question No 2827 (Hansard, 22.2.1979, page 337). While the Maralinga Range was in operation, Aboriginals approaching the Range were intercepted by ground patrols and arrangements made for their return to their communities. Examination of Commonwealth records to date has identified only one instance of Aboriginals entering a contaminated area during operation of the Maralinga Range. This occurred in May 1957 and involved a group of four Aboriginals camping overnight near one of the test sites. They were discovered the following day and examined by Australian radiation safety officials who detected minor contamination which was removed by washing. It was concluded that there was no possibility of any radiation injury having occurred.

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ATOMIC WEAPONS TESTS AT MARALINGA AND EMU (QUESTION NO. 5783)

Mr Uren asked the Minister representing the Minister for National Development and Energy upon notice on 1 April 1980: How many Australians participated (1) as members of the armed services; (2) as Commonwealth Police and (3) in other capacities in British atomic weapons tests and subsequent experiments at Maralinga and Emu, South Australia between 1956 and 1967. Mr Anthony – Minister for National Development and Energy has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question: I am advised that the number of Australians, Service and civilian, who were employed at Maralinga and Emu between 1953 and 1967 in support of the British test programs and subsequent clean up varied according to whether testing was in progress or the Range was being kept on a care and maintenance basis. At its highest during the 1956 trials the Australian support population at Maralinga was 371. The more typical Australian support population during the test campaigns, 40 to 50 personnel were required to maintain support facilities. It would not be possible to establish the precise overall number of Australians who were employed at Maralinga and Emu without a search of many thousands of individual service records, but on the basis of the above figures it would appear unlikely that the total number of individuals involved reached 2,000.

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OPERATION BRUMBY AT MARALINGA QUESTION NO 5784

Mr Uren asked the Minister representing the Minister of National Development and Energy upon notice, on 1 April 1980: Did any Australian (a) Serviceman or (b) civilians participate in the 1967 Operation Brumby cleanup of areas and facilities contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive isotopes at the Maralinga Range in South Australia Mr Anthony – The Minister for National Development and Energy has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question: I am advised that Operation Brumby was carried out by the British Royal Engineers and Australian personnel provided support as they did while the Maralinga Range was in use. See Answer to Question 5783.

The following testimony can be compared with what the affected people themselves say about their afflications at that time and since. Modern health physics is on the record firmly contesting the testimony of the victims. There is no doubt about that.

JOINT COMMITTEE ON ATOMIC ENERGY Congressional Hearings SUMMARY-ANALYSIS OF HEARINGS MAY 27-29, AND
JUNE 3-‘7,1957 ON THE NATURE OF RADIOACTIVE FALLOUT AND ITS EFFECTS ON MAN AUGUST 1957

P936
I have been asked to summarize the early effects of exposure of animals and man to external radiation with particular reference to effects of fallout radiation on the Marshallese,
P946
Four women in the Rongelap group were pregnant when brought to Kwajalein. Two
were in the first trimester, one in the second trimester and one in the third trimester.
There were no abnormal symptoms referable to pregnancy. As far as could be
determined the pregnancy continued in the normal fashion.
In the Ailinginae group of 69 r, one woman was in the second trimester. Fetal
movements were unaffected in the individual in third trimester. The pregnant women
had a marked depression of platelet counts but at no time was there any vaginal
bleeding. At 12-month reexamination of the above women, all had delivered. One
baby was born dead; the others were normal.
In the case of the one stillborn, irradiation occurred to the mother either before
conception or early in the first trimester. It is possible
that the irradiation may have contributed but there is no way to prove this.
P947
Evidence for the development of Skin lesions commenced approximately 2 weeks after exposure.
During the early stages or development of the lesions, itching, burning and slight pain
were experienced with the more superficial lesions.
With deeper lesions the pain was more severe. The deeper foot lesions were the
most painful and caused some of the people to walk on their
heels for several days during the acute stages. Some of the more severe lesions of
the neck and axillae were painful. There were no
constitutional symptoms associated with the skin lesions.

The characteristic sequence of events in the development of the lesions was the
occurrence of symptoms, then of black pigmented areas,
small in size, which grew larger in size and coalesced. Later the skin began to shed
from the inside of the pigmented plaques to the outside, and in some cases resulted
in the production of large depigmented areas. In most of the lesions the shedding
was limited to the superficial layers of the skin. In some the process continued with
the development of superficial ulcers. A few became infected.

The appearance of these skin burns can best be illustrated by referral to chapter III of
reference 1 where Kodachrome pictures illustrate the sequence of events.
In addition to the skin burns, loss of hair, spotty in nature, occurred in some of the
individuals. The hair grew in again with normal color
and texture and the re growth was complete in all except possibly one middle-aged
man in whom it came in somewhat sparsely. Small pieces if skin were removed
surgically from some of the burned areas for microscopic study. These pieces of skin
demonstrate the typical findings of radiation injury. Some of the skin burns became
infected, particularly those on the feet, and were treated locally by cleansing and
applications of antibiotic ointments. The skin burns healed in
most cases with return of normal color and texture of the skin, and (word not legible)
some cases scars were left with depigmented areas.
The worst burn occurred on the back of the ear of a middle aged man. It produced a
permanent scar with absence of pigment and abnormal
blood vessels and a slight horny growth of the overlying skin has developed. The
skin has been carefully observed at 6 months, 12
months, 2 years, and 3 years after exposure, and there is no evidence at the present
time of any breakdown in the early burns of the skin,
there is no evidence of the development of cancer at this time. In time the
depigmented scars are still evident. The individuals have
been seen on two occasions by a plastic surgeon, Dr. Bradford Cannon, of the
Harvard Medical School, who feels that no plastic repair is necessary and that the
prognosis in general is good.

FACTORS INFLUENCING SEVERITY OF THE LESIONS
Certain lessons were learned from the Marshallese experience.
Burns were caused by direct contact of the radioactive material with the skin. The
perspiration as common in the tropics, the delay in decontamination and the
difficulties in decontamination certainly favored the development of the skin burns.
Those individuals who remained indoors or under trees during the fallout developed
less
severe skin burns. The children who went wading in the ocean developed
P948
fewer lesions of the feet and most of the Americans who were more aware of the
dangers of the fallout, took shelter in aluminum
buildings and bathed and changed clothes. Consequently they developed only very
mild beta burns.
Lastly, a single layer of cotton material offered almost complete protection, as was
demonstrated by the fact that skin burns developed almost entirely on the exposed
parts of the body.
The prognosis of beta skin burns and radiation burns of the skin is excellently
described in chapter III of reference 1.

P949INTERNAL ABSORPTION OF RADIONUCLIDES

During the 2 days before evacuation, the Rongelap people lived
Under conditions of extreme contamination without any concerted efforts to protect
themselves against the dangers of internal contamination. These individuals drank
contaminated water, and ate their natural foodstuffs which were contaminated
externally. Their hands were contaminated; they inhaled and obviously ingested
certain indeterminate amounts of material.

The body burdens of isotopes in these individuals was evaluated by biochemical
analysis of the urine of the exposed people and assisted by studies on swine. These
swine were removed from the island at a later date.
The urinary and fecal excretion was studied and ultimately the animals were killed.

Extensive radiochemical analyses were made of their entire bodies. By comparison, approximations of body burdens of radionuclides was made. From a combination of primary excretion and animal studies estimates were made of the probable body burden. Rare and alkaline earths accounted for about 70 percent of the urine radioactivity. Strontium 89 was about at the maximum permissible level……

End quote.

Was the Sr89 level in urine – determined to be “about at” the maximum permissible level under, over or sideways Dr Cronkite? What about the other stuff?

Today when lay people speak in such terms, the paid experts jump down throats for lack of knowledge and precision. The politics behind these hearings and the limits of disclosure placed upon them by Strauss and Holifield are well known. Holifield was a fully qualified tailor of men’s fashion prior to gaining his position as a politician in charge of such hearings.

Cronkite honestly admitted the beta burns, not attempting to name them “psorasis” or anything else. The diagnosis was confirmed as a result of Cronkite sending samples of the affected human skin to Pearson at the AEC. Pearson carefully compared the human skin with the specimens taken from cattle hide taken from the similarly afflicted livestock heards of Nevada and Utah. At one Cronkite messaged Pearson, asking him to hurry up, as the Islanders were growing restive at the painful process of donating their skin to US research.

The lesions on the human skin and the lesions on the cattle skin, Pearson concluded was the same.

The information presented to the Congressional hearings was prettied up, the exchanges between Cronkite and Pearson only appearing in then secret documents which were declassified and included in the 1994 opennet database.

None of this has helped the Australian Aboriginal people who did suffer the same local radiation injury to skin as the Marshal Islanders. This Australian exposure resulted from the two bomb tests known as Totem 1 and Totem 2. At the very least. However the American record does present some truth of the matter for Australians to read, if there are any left with the motivation to read of such things.

A couple of final points.

I am not suggesting the the exposures suffered as a result of the three predicatable reactor failures (Ergen, AEC, 1967) in Japan in March 2011 are similar to the exposures suffered by the crew of the Lucky Dragon or the people of the Marshal Islands. The ones closest in are the most affected.

However, in the matter of the hide lesions reported by the cattle still living in the Fukushima zone (because their owners refuse to leave their live stock) needs mentioning.

Pictures of these Fukushima cattle and the stories of the farmers who refuse to comply with orders to destroy their stock and leave the exclusion is a testament to the myth of Fukushima published repeatedly by authorities.

And that is : Fukushima did no harm. What crap. The exclusion zone is not a safe place. What areas actually should be in included in the exclusion zone is a matter of intense debate and argument in Japan. The decontamination of spaces outside the zone which are deemed safe are contingent upon which school of thought one holds and who one chooses to believe. Given the events and distortions published by nuclear authorities since March 2011, it is little wonder that many affected Japanese people are reluctant to take government at its word that return home to previously contaminated properties is safe. All the steam cleaning and raking of leaves in the world will not convince people who hold grounds for doubt. The biggest basis for doubt being the decades old campaign of proclaiming the then new reactors were perfectly safe that no disaster would occur. Anyone who disagreed was isolated, any scientist who disagreed lost tenture and promotion, in a re run of the fate of Linus Pauling.

And so when I read in relation to the Fukushima cattle that government scientists first refused to examine the cattle suffering lesions to their hides, I was appalled. But this soon passed when I read that examination of the cattle had taken place and that no expert in Japan could say what the lesions were.

Japanese farmers are expert. So are the Japanese vets. For government to proclaim local radiation injury to hide a mystery is quite beyond the pale.

Two Japanese farmers whose livelihoods were wrecked by the 2011 nuclear disaster staged a protest Friday at Tokyo’s agriculture ministry, scuffling briefly with police as they unsuccessfully tried to unload a bull from a truck.

Masami Yoshizawa and fellow farmer Naoto Matsumura have remained at their farms to care for their own and others’ abandoned livestock in areas where access has been restricted due to radiation fears since the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

The two drove down from Fukushima, bringing the black bull in the back of a truck, to appeal for help with the livestock, some of which have developed unexplained white spots on their hides.

Yoshizawa and Matsumura are among thousands of farmers who lost their livelihoods when their farms, produce and livestock were declared off-limits and unsafe after the nuclear plant, crippled by a massive earthquake and tsunami spewed radiation into the countryside.

They want the farm ministry or other government agencies to help them figure out what is causing the spots on the animals’ hides and to stop culling abandoned livestock and burning radiation-contaminated vegetation they need to feed the animals.

“The ministry told us they don’t know what is causing the spots. Well, they need to do more research and figure it out. They can’t just run away, saying they don’t know,” Yoshizawa said.

It is lunacy for the Japanese government to claim is has no idea what the beta burns on the hide of the Fukushima cattle. In the absence of proof of such utter ignorance on the part of government, the public record proclaims an alternative. That the government is not ignorant and is therefore failing to gain public trust in this matter. Cows don’t take a bath. Not even on Friday nights, Mr Abe.

Excuse me for getting a tad upset. In this setting is surprising that people around the world say NO to any dose at all from the nukers? Views with the same stature by this public, the authorities may as well be muggers offering a safe length of stabbing knife.

By saying they don’t know, they do not have to discount Beta lesion in a peer reviewed document. I’d actually love to see such a paper. “This cannot be beta burn causing necrosis to horn and some hide, depigmentation to other places – all of which would indicate the places of highest doses – the rump when the cattle rest in their characteristic fashion, around the eyes, lips and face – the places closest to contaminated grass when the cattle graze. In any event the lesions evident on the cattle cannot be beta burns because each wound indicates 6,000 – 12,000 roentgen of dose. As we all know, even at its worst, Fukushima was perfectly safe, no cause for worry, no harm done, even when people were ordered to stay indoors at 30 kms for fear of immediate symptoms. No, Fukushima was a perfectly managed event of no cause for health concerns, the Prime Minister at the time who contradicted this on 15 March 2011 is contradicted by the British Chief scientist. Nope, can’t possibly be beta lesions, no matter what the record says. We therefore don’t know what it is, because the only thing it could be it isn’t.

The discrepancy between the official dosimetry and the effects suffered by participants in the British nuclear weapon programmes of the 1950s and 1960s remains a major legal difficulty in the matter of the British test veterans, a remanent of which are slugging it out still in the British courts.

The Australians have only the Veterans Affairs provisions left to pursue, as I understand it. The dose and effects suffered here remaining a barrier to the granting of relevant pensions. (The Howard government made free cancer treatment available to test participants, the Rudd government making the VA processes easier (in practise I am told, it is as result much easier to get a “No you can’t get a VA pension for your radiaiton effects” letter from Veterns Affairs.)

One of the barriers in the British case (which surely, in general, applies to the Australian case) is the inability of the British government to release the fallout information from each of its bomb tests, because such information release to the veterans in open court would present “an aid to the enemy” (letter from British authorities to Dr Busby), (it gives clues as to the design of the bombs, though one wonders why an enemy would what to duplicate a 1950s British bomb. Osama bin Laden lived for years with taxi ride distance of the more modern Pakistani nuclear stockpile for example.) If a court defeat suffered by the British government is the enemy, well, it reduces the proceedings to self serving shambles. (As such have usually been.)

Another reason for refusal of such information was communicated to Dave Whyte earlier this year. Authorities in Britain wrote him that such disclosure would “create difficulties in Britain’s relationship with other nations”.

Hmm. Do they mean the effects of the tests? Or is there some agreement still in force from the time of Britain’s nuclear weapon adventures which would have consequences today should Britain spill some beans of information in the interests of providing remedy to aggrieved veterans? Is Britain an informational colony of another nuclear power.

I don’t know. However, I have always believed Britain and Australia have always been slower to release relevant than the United States. And so, in order to find essential truths, I have spent years consulting that portion of the US record which is available to me. That record which is cleared for public distribution, which offends noone and no authority in the United States and which may be freely quoted. I have learnt a large proportion of what I know from that record.

I was recently asked a question basically about what amounts to the “missing dose” suffered by nuclear veterans subject to British bombs. One might take the view that the dose estimate is accurate, but that dose effect maintained by British authorities is incorrect. The long standing argument regarding the effects of internal emitters – largely centred around alpha emitters, but from which one cannot exclulde beta/gamma emitters. The question was put to me in regard to the British H bombs, a subject I have not looked into in the past. There was one Tritium boosted fission test in Australia and that was it. I had no reason to look at H bombs. Given the suffering of the British veterans, given the claimed dosimetry suffered maintained by British authorities, given the availiabilty of relevant documents on secrecy grounds, where does one start considering the origins of the “missing dose”. It being beyond me to proprose model of dose response model which would render the admitted dosimetry, sufficient, in the government eyes, to render the suffering veterans eligible for the pensions they seek. (and in this matter changes to the law to allow that seem the fairest and most graceful option – but it is not to be. The legal contest commenced in earnest from the 80s. It is 2014. It is a cruel and wasteful imposition upon veterans in the final decade, by and large, of their lives.)

Here is what I have found in regard to U237 as produced by British bombs. (Thanks largely as usual, to Americans and the American record, but also to the Japanese record.) :

Contributor at Glasstone blogspot states:
“There is also data in a report on U-237 by Hanna of AWRE in the DEFE16 files at the U.K. National Archives for the two 1953 U.K. TOTEM tests at Emu Field, Australia, giving the U-237 production, which was low because they were pure fission shots. I don’t have my notes handy but from memory I think the U-237 production was only 1/3,000 atom per fission.” http://glasstone.blogspot.com.au/2006/03/clean-nuclear-weapon-tests-navajo-and.html While this does not refer to a fusion device, it is an interesting find regarding a Beta emitting Uranium isotope of high activity and short half life, which decays to very long lived Neptunium 237.

The author at this post in Glasstone blogspot states: “Table 11 (on page 41 of the original document) contains all of the originally Secret – Restricted Data on neutron induced activities U-239/Np-239, U-237, and Np-240 in the fallout from 13 different key Jangle, Castle, Redwing and Plumbbob fallout producing tests.
….As the table shows, only thermonuclear weapons produce significant quantities of U-237. ….It is also worthy of note that the fission bomb tests Diablo and Shasta of Plumbbob in 1957 both produced only 0.10 atom/fission of U-239/Np-239, which is only about one-sixth of the production in the 1951 Sugar and Uncle tests.

The reason is that the 1951 tests Sugar and Uncle were old-fashioned implosion bombs with thick U-238 neutron “reflectors” that (instead of simply reflecting neutrons back) captured a large proportion of neutrons emitted from the core, whereas the 1957 tests Diablo and Shasta did not employ U-238 as a thick neutron reflector. The smaller amounts of U-238 contained in Diablo and Shasta was present in the highly-enriched uranium that was used in the composite uranium-plutonium cores that were in use at that time…..Notice also that Castle-Bravo produced 0.56 atoms/fission of U-239/Np-239, 0.10 atoms/fission of U-237, and 0.14 atoms/fission of Np-240, according to Dr Miller’s secret data. end quote. and here, the 0.10 atoms/fission of U237 is confusing given Lapp’s (1957) very clear concern that U237 in the ash collected from the deck of the Lucky Dragon Number 5 in 1954 was the primary isotope of concern in the exposures recieved by the crew of the vessel. Lapp in his 1957 calculates the weight of U237 produced by Castle Bravo as being 1/2 ton. (prior to it condensing around the coral compounds drawn into the fireball and which formed a large proportion by weight of the fallout). The mass of U238 in Castle Bravo’s third stage must have been very great. Most of the U238 fissioning, with the minority (0.10 atom of U237 created per atom of U238 fissioned. If I understand that correctly.)

The writer at the above Glasstone blog further states ” To avoid secrecy, Dr Miller quoted the (unclassified) Japanese findings in his unclassified 1963 “Fallout and Radiological Countermeasures” SRI report and also in his 1964 SRI report “Biological and Radiological Effects of Fallout from Nuclear Explosions”: the data from the Japanese physicists suggest a figure of 0.30 atoms/fission for U-239/Np-239 and 0.15 atoms/fission for U-237.”

And this brings me to a point in history which is very interesting indeed. Being ignorant of it, my report of it here can’t be taken without question. But I think that given the Japanese published their findings of the Lucky Dragon number 5 fallout (as well as analysis of radioactive rain which fell in Japan at the same period) in 1954, and this this publication allowed world wide appreciation of the fact that Castle Bravo was a 3F bomb (Fission fusion Fission device) with a U238 third stage, then the security classification the USA imposed on its knowledge of these matters co-existed in reality with the open publication of the Japanese findings. These Japanese findings were gained simply for medical reasons. The Japanese doctors treating the crew of the Lucky Dragon Number 5 simply needed to know what the crew had been exposed to precisely. The USA assisted by replying with a letter that contained, according to Lapp, a technical riddle as a clue. And that riddle, apparently, made relevant a Japanese discovery made in 1938. The discovery of U238 via cyclotron.

Happily I have found one of the reports originally published by the Japanese in 1954. (this point I point out that this blog is a blog, it is not a thesis. It is infact part 2 of what essentially is a personal diary being written in th public domain. At the start, Nuclear History (the first part of this blog) was an attempt to advocate for Australian nuclear veterans. Then Fukushma occurred and things changed a bit. Since March 2011, the amount of content devoted to the cause of nuclear veterans has reduced. Recently though, I was asked a question to British H bomb veterans, and U237 arises in my mind as something to look at. I stumbled upon mention of U237 as possibly relevant because I re read Lapp, 1957. The book itself raised the question of how Lapp got around US security – the Miller method of citing the independent Japanese discoveries of the content of Castle Bravo fallout. The ironic thing being that what was secret in the US domain was open and unclassified if one’s source was the Japanese information. This resonates with the situation regarding the UK – US agreements which allowed the UK to access, as a NATO member, US nuclear and thermo nuclear assistance. (the question here being are British veterans being denied dosimetry information on the basis of a 1950s agreement regarding what was then secret US owned data related to thermo nuclear weapons, and if so, did this information include the material published independently in the public domain by the Japanese in 1954? If so, is the Japanese 1954 information useful to the British veterans in their decades long legal battles with the British government? Is the information of such substance as to make life easier for Australian nuclear veterans who were exposed to French thermo nuclear weapon pulse and fallout (HMAS Supply, as directed by the Whitlam government. ) Is it of any use to the New Zealanders? Hopefully they know the information and have considered it. I’m late on the scene of the H bombs.

Lapp in his 1957 book assigns most of the exposure suffered by the crew to U237. The products listed above include some very active fission products. Cronkite in his testimony to a US Congressional Committee Hearing stated to the effect that Sr89 in urine samples taken from Marshal Islanders revealed the substance was at near maximum permissible levels, and that the beta burns suffered by the population were caused by to Sr89.

Assuming Cronkite (AEC, who was despatched to examine the afflicted population) was obviously subject to US secrecy contraints. Lapp and Miller, as mentioned above, side stepped that barrier by citing the open Japanese data. I conclude from this that the Japanese fishermen, afflicted by the same fallout inventory as the Marshall Islanders, had their major dose contributor freely assigned as being U237 while the Marshal Islanders, reliant upon US examination rather than any independent examination, had their major dose contributor, at least in terms of their beta burns to skin, assigned to Sr89.

Of course, given that U237 is formed immediately upon the neutron capture of U238, and the fact that Sr89 is formed only toward the end of the Krypton 89 decay chain, and given that Krypton 89 is a gas, the first of the U237 will form, possibly condense and fallout prior to the first formation of Sr89. At different distances from blast point, the ratios between each of these two will vary. Fallout is no uniform over time and distance, it is fractionalised. Comparing the position of the Lucky Dragon with the position of the affected inhabited Marshall Islands and comparing both with the position of the blast point, would be revealing as the differences in exposures suffered. U237 and Sr89 are both beta emitters with activities capable of causing skin burns. Those Islanders who did not quickly wash were most affected. Those who waded in the sea suffered far less beta burn damage to their feet than those who did not. The Japaneses sailors suffered burns to scalp, the hair proving difficult to cleanse of fallout. This being done in hospital.

So which is correct ? Sr89 or U237? Given the 52 day and 6.75 day half life of Sr89 and U273 respectively, both would have been in existence by the time the Marshal Islanders were afflicted. If the heavier (presumably) U237 fell out earlier in proportion, perhaps one or other group had a difference isotope mix. I imagine, U237 fallout did have a bearing upon the exposures suffered by the Islanders. IN the same fashion, the Sr89 Japanese scientists did find in the fallout on the Lucky Dragon 5 obviously contributed to the exposures suffered by the fishermen. Still, U237 was not admitted as an isotopes of concern to the Islanders, and in every report I have read of the fishermen in the public domain, (ie mainly Lapp) Sr89 is not mentioned.

The Marshal Islanders may have been free to read, via the Japanese publications, of the major exposure hazard in the Castle Bravo fallout presented by U237, the Americans attending the Marshal Islanders were not free to mention U237 lest the construction of the Castle Bravo be revealed to the Islanders, or more to the point, because that information was secret within the context of the US ambit. If you want the full inventory of products which contributed to your exposure, you wont get it if authorities feel it not in their own interests to disclose it.

It is a ludicrous situation, which I will use Lapp to further confirm now. And obviously, for my purposes, I am implying that in relation to the degree that the UK had to keep U237 as secret as the USA did, the veterans of Britain’s H bomb tests, in so far as U237 goes, to the extent that the British bombs, and the British modified bombs of US origin (W28) are concerned, were akin to the Marshal Islander’s situation rather than the Japanese fishermen’s situation in their ability to learn, from those with a duty of care, command and control over them, the actual substances which contributed to their exposures.

If a Marshal Islander did not trust the American description of the dose contributors to his or her bleached skin, that Islander could as the US repeatedly for the trust, and the only admissible truth would be Sr89. If that Islander telephoned the University of Tokyo and asked the same question, the answer would be given “U237”.

At this point, I ask, who should the British veterans best ask? The answer is difficult. The British government needs to consider the validity of its secrecy in these things in consultation with the creator of the original secret and secrets. The United States. That is my opinion. The ehtics of secrecy in these matters was thoroughly examined and described by Clinton’s HREX Advisory Committee. As I understand it, the relevant Executive Order remains in force. If the British government refuses to deal with what would amount to a review of the ethics of its secrets, to the extent that those secrets are US in origin, and being declassified to the extent that they now are, Clinton’s Executive Order may well enable the provision of relevant data from any appropriate public contact officer employed by the US Department of Energy to any British veteran who might ask for open information.

This is the potential situation. If it is the position, it is a lunatic positon that is held by the British government. A position in which secrets which are not secrets being with held in order to merely save the embarressment of loosing in court. Or conceding discovery of evidence to the plantiffs. HRex had a bit to say about that its final report of 1995.

I can imagine a person who has spent decades exclusively asking for access to relevant documents from British authorities in relation to the British tests (in this case H bomb tests) finding what I have written so far to be beyond belief. They may well even ask me for proof that U237 exists and if there is proof that it emits Beta, not Alpha. My main thrust for twenty years has been to supply Australian organisations (Atomic ExServicemens’ Assocation, and when Ric was still alive, the ANVA) with interesting documents which were not British, but which were in the open and legitimate domain. When obselete secrets meets open truth, one dissolves the other and only truth remains. Whatever that truth may be. If I were a nuclear veteran in court, I would want to win with the truth. If I lost with the truth so be it. No veteran has felt the process was fair, open or true. As far as I can tell.

The matter of U237 and the example of the Islanders dose description vs the Japanese dose description is one example of one secret. There are many secrets, and many explanations to conceal the hole in the page which describes the official cause and effects. The veterans experience effects not accounted for by the admitted dosimetry. Simple as that.

Cronkite informed the US Congress that the Marshal Islanders, though suffering Beta burns, which were confrimed, “did not need plastic surgery” and that “there was no sign of cancer”. Ask an Islander today what that society and its communities and individuals went through and one finds that the US Congress was ill informed by the limits to the truth applied to Cronkite’s mouth by his employer, the AEC, and its funder, the US government at that time.

For how many years was the U237 dose missing from the Islanders’ dosimetry?

What is missing from the veterans’ dosimetry?

Anyway, Lapp’s description of the AEC’s response to Japan’s plea to the USA for the detailed inventory of what was in the fallout. (Shades of the Australian ABC TV interview in which a British reactor expert from Imperial College London. When the expert was asked “what was in the cloud” from Fukushima traversing Tokyo, the expert spent talking about ground shine at the Diiachi plant. With 2 minutes of air time left, the interviewer broke in and said “Excuse me, but what people want to know is what is in the cloud? Is it cesium, Iodine….” “Yes those things”….end of program. A slight bit of phony dosimetry there I think. The expert might have been more forthcoming had he been in a dentist chair. It was like pulling teeth for the interviewer, I imagine. How to win public trust, direct from London. When people remember, an order to forget or unknow is impotent. It’s a perversion. Cs Sr U Rb Kr I Ph La Ba Te activated steel, etc etc. Its the total dose that counts. “Like a Cat scan” Shit we cant find the off switch. The British land in Tokyo and dress down Tepco. What is this ? Python without Cleese?)

Dosimetry. The difference between life and death, health and sickness. Phony dosimetry has deomstrably the stock in trade of nuclear authorities since John Hutton’s Officer CO told the entire Maralinga contingent that the Aboriginal family found wandering the range and who had to be dragged screaming into decontamination showers and scrubbed down, dog shot, deported to Yalata camp “Never existed, is that clear?” The CO in question responded to the Royal Commissioner’s question decades later by saying “yes, that’s something I would say, but I can’t remember saying it.”

Dosimetry and Castle Bravo according to Lapp.

Pages 146 and 147 of “Voyage of the Lucky Dragon” by Ralph Lapp, 1957.

The letter from Merril Eisenbud, a well known character from the Manhattan Project and AEC in the DOE Opennes Project’s Oral Histories, responds to Japan’s pleas for accurate dosimetry to help save the lives of the Lucky Dragon No. 5’s crew. The truth, being too secret to tell, forces Merril to refer the Japanese to the open literature. But there is a deviation. Some of the inventory does not fit the open literature cited (…Vol 68, page 2411, November 1946.) Atomic masses (specific substances) 103 – 130 do not conform to the open literature. The man reading Merril’s letter, Prof Kimura, built the first cyclotron outside of the USA in Japan prior to World War 2. In 1938 Prof Kimura discovered and described the creation of Uranium 237 by bombarding U238 via cycltron. And he published his results at that time. Before WW2. This was the man reading the AEC’s letter which tried to get around mentioning U237 in the fallout by referring the reader to the open literature. And pointing out where the fallout blend didnt conform. Hmm, I wonder what makes this fission fallout from any other? Of course, as we have seen the Japanese scientists quickly understood that the Bravo bomb released a large amount of U237. The lunacy of the AEC writing to the man who had discovered and first synthesised U237 in the open and the AEC attempting to conceal the secret creation of the substance by the bomb and its consequent presence in the fallout which afflicted the Japanese fishermen.

But at least Eisenbud correctly predicted the Japanese scientists would “get it”. Yet, if they did, the secret was blown. So why not speak plainly in the first place? Merril probably did not like the idea of prison.

The secret substance U237, which gave away the nature of the Bravo Bomb, was not unique to that bomb.

What is the nature of U237? Today, the majority of people, including myself, understood Uranium to be long lived, weakly radioactive, an alpha emitter and the parent of decay products of greater activity, one substance, radon, being capable of transporting itself and therefore it’s progeny away from the uranium source.

U237 is very different from the natural uranium isotopes.

Outside of Lapp’s writings, I found data for Uranium 237 at KAERI, the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute at http://atom.kaeri.re.kr/ton/index.html confirming a 6.75 day half life, decay by beta minus emission. Decay .5 MeV. Progeny Neptunium 237. Andrew Kishner calculated the activity of U237 as being 81,615 Ci/g. The second source for the activity of U237 is :

Lapp and others give the neutron energy required for the creation of U237 from U238:

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nov 1955, Lapp, Global Fallout.

In this description, Lapp gives 10 MeV as the minimum Neutron energy required for the transmutation of
U238 to U237. It is my understanding that the fission of U238 is by far the predominant result of these high energy neutron interactions with U238. This produces the same fissions products as “conventional” uranium fission. The difference with U238 seems to be the reliance of an external fast neutron source, in th ecase of Bravo – the fusion stage of the bomb. In the case of the U237 mentioned above in relation to the Totem bombs, the U238 being tamper material, Pu fission being the neutron source. In that case the U237 yield is much lower.

An additional facet in the creation of U237 is the type of fusion fuel used. Further, where a two stage fusion weapon uses a U238 pusher tamper, it may perhaps result in a higher yield of 237. Various fusion fuels may produce differing neutron energies. Lapp’s report of 10 MeV minimum energy being produced by a set variables which depend on the design of the fusion section of the bomb.

To understand if U237 was a factor in the dosimetry of the British H bomb veterans, one needs to understand the design of the British H bombs which tested experimentally at Malden and Christmas Island. As these weapons were novel devices – designed by British scientists without access to the American device designs – it is impossible to determine. Most of the British H bombs tested at the time failed to perform as expected, even though the tests proved that fusion had occurred but to a “disappointing degree”.

Wikipedia reports that each British bomb consumed 12 months worth of Britain’s production of the required fuel. How would Britain achieve a megaton range fusion weapon stockpile on the basis of the test results? If such a stockpile was impossible, what were the tests for? The demonstration of the gaining of the secret principles upon which the construction of a fusion weapon depends?

The USA did have a fusion weapons stockpile, Britain did not. Could America share the fruits of its fusion secrets – the actual bombs – with a military partner nation who demonstrably owned their own fusion secrets but who were in a poor position to produce their own fusion weapon stockpile? (Such a propsition is not as pythonesque as the USA sending technical riddles to one of the originators of U237 in Japan in order to preserve the secret of the presence of U237 in the fallout in question.

Among other sources, it is at this point the United Kingdom’s Atomic Weapons Research Establishment official history becomes interesting. If Britain’s capacity to manufacture bomb fuel was sufficient for one bomb (which did not reach the 1 megaton designed yield) a year, Britain would be rather hobbled during the arms race and a rather minor player in the destruction of the planet in the event of a full scale nuclear exchange. Things were looking desperate for Britain. The following is from the AWE website at http://www.awe.co.uk/aboutus/Our_History_f77a4.html

” “In autumn 1955, planning a trial of so-called ‘megaton’ devices got underway. The first was dropped over the Pacific on May 15th 1957. The yield of this experimental ‘hydrogen bomb’ was only 300 kilotons. Two other tests also failed to reach the one-megaton target. Another trial was hurriedly planned for November.

At the beginning of October, the Soviet Union launched the world’s first artificial satellite – something quite unexpected. It was an opportunity for the British to approach the United States about renewing collaboration on nuclear weapons. Congress began to amend the 1946 McMahon Act to allow exchanges of information, stopped in 1946, to restart. Shortly after, the next test of a British hydrogen bomb took place on November 8th 1957. The yield was 1.8 megatons. Two more successful series of tests followed.

In August 1958, the amended McMahon Act became law. An agreement was signed between the United States and Britain on sharing information ‘for mutual defence purposes’. It remains a cornerstone of work at AWE to this day.

The British decided to produce a megaton yield American warhead design under the code-name ‘Red Snow’. The equivalent British device needed more development and more nuclear tests – not possible because of an agreed pause in testing by the three nuclear powers.

However, certain aspects of the American design did not meet the British Ordnance Board Requirements. Modifications were embodied and trials carried out in Australia. The warhead would no longer fit the original American bomb casing and a much larger and heavier British one had to be used. ”

I point out that the claimed success of the British H bombs remains controversial. “BRITAIN’S first ‘H-bombs’, tested in 1957, were not H-bombs at all, but a bluff to convince the world that Britain was still a first-rate power, according to research to be published tomorrow. At the time, the report’s authors say, it probably even fooled the Americans for a while. It provoked an interest in the British nuclear programme that ended with the US giving Britain the means to manufacture true H-bombs in exchange for access to British ideas and designs for future weapons. According to the research, the secret of the bluff was confined to top nuclear scientists and inner government circles.

Furthermore, newly released US documents show that the British did not develop their later thermonuclear warheads – true H-bombs – entirely on their own, as the Government has asserted, but drew on US designs.

A 1958 report, recently released from the US Department of Energy archives, serial number LXXXI-596, says: ‘There are specific developments which the UK scientists have made which hold a great deal of interest for us and which might offer advantages in our weapons systems.’

The assertions appear in an article in the London Review of Books by Norman Dombey, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Sussex, and Eric Grove, formerly of the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.” Source: The Independent, 15 Oct 1992. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-hbomb-tests-in-1957-were-a-bluff-research-shows-even-us-was-fooled-by-uk-claims-to-have-thermonuclear-weapon-1557484.html
Wikipedia gives the 9 hydrogen bomb tests conducted under Operation Grapple. Of these, 3 were in the megaton range. Wikipedia also reports that : “The practical result of the British H-bomb project (in conjunction with other political events [8]) was that the United States became willing to enter into the 1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement. This put an end to independent nuclear weapons development by the U.K. in favour of a program that was closely based on the American designs. The benefit to the U.K. was that this was much cheaper than developing its own designs for weapons that could be made in large numbers, and then deployed. An additional benefit was that the U.K. was able to buy highly enriched uranium from the U.S. and also sell plutonium to it made in British nuclear reactors. This was a deal that was useful to both parties and also profitable for the U.K. To their surprise, American nuclear weapons designers also benefited from access to information from the U.K. about the details of its high explosives and weapons electronics, and from the experience of designing nuclear weapons without large numbers of nuclear weapons test explosions [citation needed].

While the thermonuclear bomb designs tested by the U.K. during Operation Grapple were successful, they were never serially produced. The useful effect of the British tests was to increase the quality of information that the American Atomic Energy Commission was willing to share with the U.K., and also for British weapons designers to learn how to use that information successfully.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Grapple#cite_note-17 It is not necessary to establish that the British fusion bombs were fake, though if they were very large tritium boosted fission devices, one would expect a difference between the declared dosimetry applied to the veterans and the actual dosimetry kept under lock and key to preserve the “secret”. Such a suggestion borders on either the outlandish or the typically British when things go wrong.

In the event, Britain never produced its own designs as operational devices. The agreement with the US obviously the mutual keeping of secrets. In the era when the USA declassified much information – particularly during Clinton’s program of Openness in the 1990s, culminating in the declassification of an extremely large number of secret documents, and the creation of an online archive available to the public at https://www.osti.gov/opennet/ it is plausible that Britain today keeps as classified information which the USA has declassified and which may be easily accessed by anyone.

AWE history site states: “However, certain aspects of the American design did not meet the British Ordnance Board Requirements. Modifications were embodied and trials carried out in Australia. The warhead would no longer fit the original American bomb casing and a much larger and heavier British one had to be used. ”

I have no idea why Britain would want to modify a proven US H bomb. Perhaps it was for safety reasons. Perhaps it was to cram in as much U238 into the device as possible, resulting in the need for a bigger case. Who can tell? If “Red Snow” was capable of generating 10 MeV neutrons, a bit of U238 couldn’t hurt. Would they do such a thing?

Wikipedia describes the Red Snow weapon: “Red Snow was a British thermonuclear weapon.[1] Its physics package was identical to that of the United States W28 nuclear warhead[2] used in the B28 nuclear bomb and AGM-28 Hound Dog missile, with an explosive yield of approximately 1.1 megaton.

The Red Snow warhead was developed after a September 1958 decision to adopt the US warhead for British use, following the 1958 US-UK Mutual Defence Agreement. It entered service in 1961, remaining in use until 1972, when it was replaced by the WE.177 bomb. Perhaps 150 were produced.

Red Snow was used as both a free-fall bomb and as the warhead of the Blue Steel missile.[1][3] In the gravity bomb role, it was fitted into the casing of the Yellow Sun weapon, even though the Red Snow warhead was considerably smaller than that of the original Yellow Sun bomb.

The Red Snow warhead was later reduced in size, weight and yield, and fitted with a smaller more modern primary, intended as a Red Beard replacement. Known as Una, this was later reduced in diameter and renamed Ulysses as the warhead intended for the UK warhead for the Skybolt project.[4]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Snow

The full history of the British Fusion Weapon programme remains yet to be revealed. There is sufficient controversy and difficulty reported and admitted to wonder what exactly the veterans of the H bomb tests actually exposed to, and to ask as usual for nuclear veterans, why their health status is so at variance to what the official dosimetry says it should be. The easy answer for the government is plain. The answer for the veterans is that the dosimetry is wrong. How the USA tackled this situation will be looked at in another post. I can say, from my arm chair, not being a nuclear veteran myself, that the American way remains far kinder, and the willingness of the USA to reconsider and amend its dosimetry as it did around 2001 is an example for others, obviously, to follow.

Many veterans in Britain and Australia wonder if the secrecy which limits hopes for justice is valid, or just an excuse to perpetuate lies originated for more than one reason. There is no proof that U237 and its decay Neptunium are missing dose components to which Christmas and Malden Island veterans were exposed. But I think it is a fair question. U237 is an immensely active form of Uranium, emitting beta rays. The immediate exposure may be immense, as it was for the victims of 1954. If internalised, the decay product Neptunium, alpha, becomes the traditional internalised alpha emitter of long term cellular insult and concern.

Americans have had questions about the British Hydrogen bomb program of the 1950s:

“The skin has been carefully observed at 6 months, 12 months, 2
years, and 3 years after exposure, and there is no evidence at the present
time of any breakdown in the early burns of the skin, there is no evidence of
the development of cancer at this time. In time the depigmented scars are still
evident. The individuals have been seen on two occasions by a plastic
surgeon, Dr. Bradford Cannon, of the Harvard Medical School, who feels that
no plastic repair is necessary and that the prognosis in general is good.”
(Source: JOINT COMMITTEE ON ATOMIC ENERGY SUMMARY-ANALYSIS
OF HEARINGS MAY 27-29, AND JUNE 3-7,1957 ON THE NATURE OF
RADIOACTIVE FALLOUT AND ITS EFFECTS ON MAN AUGUST 1957)

This testimony is at odds with the later findings regarding the effects of the fallout,
and is a dramatic example of authority choosing to focus upon the appearance of things rather
than the actual human condition. The human condition can be imagined by considering the conditions which
the USA recognised openly decades later as effects of the dosimetry imposed upon the peoples of the
Pacific by American bombs:

“In June 1983,…the U.S. recognized the contributions and sacrifices made by
the people of the Marshall Islands in regard to the Nuclear Testing Program
and accepted the responsibility for compensation owing to citizens of the
Marshall Islands for loss or damage to property and person resulting from that
testing….” “of [the] 1,999 awardees, more than 1,000 have died receiving only
partial payment awarded for their personal injuries. As of December 31, 2006,
a total of $73,261,198 paid to those awardees or their heirs, leaving an unpaid
balance of $18,140,802.” The 36 medical conditions for which the payments
have been made are:
1 Leukemia (other than chronic lymphocytic leukemia),
2 Cancer of the thyroid,
3 Cancer of the breast,
4 Cancer of the pharynx,
5 Cancer of the esophagus,
6 Cancer of the stomach,
7 Cancer of the small intestine,
8 Cancer of the pancreas,
9 Multiple myeloma.
10 Lymphomas (except Hodgkin’s disease),
11 Cancer of the bile ducts,
12 Cancer of the gall bladder,
13 Cancer of the liver (except if cirrhosis or hepatitis B is indicated),
14 Cancer of the colon,
15 Cancer of the urinary tract, including the urinary bladder, renal pelves,
urethra and urethra,
16 Tumors of the salivary gland,
17 Non-malignant thyroid nodular disease (unless limited to occult nodules),
18 Cancer of the ovary,
19 Unexplained hypothyroidism (unless thyroiditis indicated),
20 Severe growth retardation due to thyroid damage,
21 Unexplained bone marrow failure,
22 Meningioma,
23 Radiation sickness diagnosed between June 30, 1946 and August 18,
1958, inclusive,
24 Beta burns diagnosed between June 30, 1946 and
August 18, 1958, inclusive,
25 Severe mental retardation (provided born between
May and September 1954, inclusive, and mother was present on Rongelap or
Utirik Atolls at any time in March 1954),
26 Unexplained hyperparathyroidism,
27 Tumors of the parathyroid gland,
28 Bronchial cancer (including cancer of
the lung and pulmonary system),
29 Tumors of the brain, including schwannomas, but
not including other benign neural tumors,
30 Cancer of the central nervous system,
31 Cancer of the kidney,
32 Cancer of the rectum,
33 Cancer of the cecum,
34 Non-melanoma skin cancer in individuals who were diagnosed as having
suffered beta burns under number
24 above,
35 Cancer of the bone,
36 Autoimmune thyroiditis.

Source: Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal, June 11, 2007

Quite obviously, the attendance of a plastic surgeon never was a major priority
for the nuclear victims.

One wonders how the existence of the truer picture of the fallout inventory of that bomb – Bravo –
placed in the public domain by the Japanese scientists in 1954 affected the course of justice (such as it
has been) for the Pacific Islanders. If the Lucky Dragon Number 5 had never made it back to port,
had the fallout thus been denied independent analysis, what hope would the Islanders have had in 1983 of
the US admitting cause and effect?

In regard to the victims of the British bombs, the decades long denial of any effect from the bombs has been a deliberate social inculcation program which commenced with the phony fallout maps (Cross), the suppression of fallout inventory (Titterton, Marsden, Cross) the suppression of effects (Lennon, Royal Commission interview transcripts) and false statements issued by authorities regarding the alleged safety of specific fallout events compared to the testimony of lawyers involved in cases which medically proved, to the satisfaction of the courts that disease was inflicted by specific fallout events. Such testimony is required because the relevant court case is suppressed from public access. (Collett).

There remains very strong grounds for considering the claims that British and Australian authorities make, in their legal and public pronouncements, are feeble in their completeness and truthfulness. The only non Anglophile eyes which saw the effects of the bombs in Australia are Aboriginal eyes. This public domain knowledge is treated as “unscientific” by the political elites. However, this claim stands throughly debunked by many later observers and by the testimony and medical histories of the witnesses. (Lennon, Collet, Lennon, Madigan, Langley).

It is a great pity that Glasstone blogspot, a vast online repository of value, considers the written record authored by Lorna Arnold to be creditable. It is not. It is part of the Anglophile propaganda campaign aimed at repelling the witnessed truths. (Cross). Finally, there is the fact of the alternately missing or lost Maralinga medical records. Veteran John Hutton, having lifted pages from his file when doctors at the Maralinga hosptial were not looking, being the only Australian veteran to have gained access to his medical record. Strangely though, Lorna Arnold had access to all these records. So where the fuck are they really? Locked away at Aldermaston???

How relevant is U273 and its decay progeny to the veterans of the British bombs? I do not know. How relevant is the story of its suppression from the official public record of the nuclear powers due to selective secrecy juxtaposed with the public record since 1938 of its existence and nature? Extremely valid. U273 was never born secret. The only thing that was a bastard of a lie.

If Lapp made a mistake in his constant, ironic and blatent repititon of the name “U237” in the public domain, by voice, by printed word, by electronic interview, it is this: He failed to explain the very great differences between U273 and the natural uranium isotopes. In fact, for a lay person like me, it is relatively difficult to find out the radio chemical nature of U237. To the extent that this is misunderstood, (though many today were born too late to know, from simply living, of the Lapp U273 account, and so have never heard of U273) the powers have made a rod for their own backs. The Japanese fishermen, their doctors and scientists, murmured “Beta, Beta, Beta.” as they fought the immediate total dose in order to stay alive. It is indeed the total dose which counts. At the time of exposure the cry is “Alpha Beta Gamma.” As years pass, the residue in tissue, aged long lived stuff, is composed of both beta and alpha emitters, with still some gamma. Perhaps a new model is needed. Something is wrong. Either the dosimetry, or the science. For the effects suffered are denied by governments. In this case, perhaps, the easy path is simply to change the relevant laws. The veterans court case is only about their case. No one else’s. Once the cases are all won, then and only then has a precedent been set. And that will not happen. Too many have been lost because the proof is secret and with held from court. Change the law, pay the pension, let them die in peace.

This isnt about science, it is about justice. One case be another case, the judge would throw the amalgam out. The public domain, no matter how applicable it’s information, is first of all a political tool, not primarily a legal. Change happens when the wave of public opinion breaks. The laws change and the courts, compelled by law, may make remedy. So long as lies are told in court either by inclusion of the false or by omission of the truth, and so long as authorities presenting the perjury are seen as legitimate witnesses, the truth with likely loose it’s case. The veterans case is about pensions. It is not about dismantling nuclear industry. That may take a further 200 years. Depending on when the wave breaks.

On that day the archives will be breached by government itself in a feeble attempt to justify why it’s manic public lies uttered over decades were so incongruent with what both it and the public actually knew.

“Of course I could not tell the safety committee all I knew. I was subject to American and British secrecy.” Titterton, 1984. When secrecy gets in the way of justice in an alleged democracy, the totalarians have won the war.

Abe is a quick learner, Mrs. Yamamoto. The public record of Fukushima won’t get a legal lookin in the court cases of 2050 brought by the children.

Paul Langley

Postscript:

1. Part of Cronkite’s testimony to the Congessional Hearings (1957) is presented next post.

2. Hutton’s pages snatched from his Maralinga Hospital medical file show a diangosis of “vomiting” . This is not a diagnosis but an observation of a medical sign. The pages reveal Hutton was treated, among other things, with a medication used in the treatment of radiation sickness. To this day his sufferings are denied by authorities. He was the only Australian nuclear veteran able to retain any shred of his medical file. Various authorities claim these records are lost and successive Australian governments have refused to release for various reasons including patient confidentiality, (the men who want the records are the ones who own the medical information. The records are about them, not about the government.) or because the government claims it cannot find then. Lorna Arnold wrote her propaganda from England and had full access to the records in question.

3.
“In December 2000, in response to GAO’s findings, the National Research Council was asked to review the DTRA dose reconstruction program, and the present committee was formed for this purpose. The committee was charged by Congress to conduct a review that included the random selection of samples of doses reconstructed by DTRA to determine

Whether or not the reconstruction of the sample doses is accurate.

Whether or not the reconstructed doses are accurately reported.

Whether or not the assumptions made regarding radiation exposure based on the sampled doses are credible.

Whether or not the data from nuclear tests used by DTRA as part of the reconstruction of the sampled doses are accurate…..On the basis of its review, the committee reached the following conclusions related to all aspects of the process of dose reconstruction for atomic veterans:

The methods used to estimate average doses to participants in various military units from external exposure to gamma rays, on the basis of exposures measured by film badges worn by participants or by field survey instruments, and from external exposure to neutrons, on the basis of established methods of calculation, are generally valid. However, because the specific exposure conditions for any individual often are not well known, many participants did not wear film badges during all possible times of exposure, and the available survey data used as input to the models often are sparse and highly variable, the resulting estimates of total dose for many participants are highly uncertain…..

Upper bounds of doses from external exposure to photons often are underestimated, sometimes considerably (for example, by a factor of 2-3), particularly when reconstructed doses are based on field survey data and uncertain assumptions about an individual’s locations and times of exposure, as opposed to being based on film-badge data.

Upper bounds of doses from external exposure to neutrons are always underestimated—by a factor of about 3-5, depending on the value of the neutron quality factor assumed in a dose reconstruction—because of neglect of the uncertainty in the biological effectiveness of neutrons relative to gamma rays in all calculations. However, few participants received significant doses from exposure to neutrons.

Doses to the skin and lens of the eye from external exposure to beta particles are claimed by the NTPR program to be upper bounds (“high-sided”) because they are based on multiplying a presumed upper-bound external gamma dose by a calculated beta-to-gamma dose ratio, which also is presumed to be “high-sided.” However, upper-bound gamma doses based on a reconstruction are often too low, as noted above, and the beta-to-gamma dose ratios are not evidently “high-sided” in all cases. In addition, the committee found no evidence in the 99 reviewed files that estimates of beta dose to skin include the dose due to contamination of the skin, for example, by means of adhering dirt particles. That probably was an important exposure pathway for many participants at the NTS because of the substantial dust in areas of participant activity at many shots.

Methods used to estimate inhalation doses are highly uncertain and subject to potentially important sources of error because of the lack of relevant air monitoring or bioassay data, and most uncertainties and sources of error have not been evaluated by the NTPR program. Nonetheless, in some exposure scenarios, the committee believes that inhalation doses assigned to atomic veterans are credible upper bounds. That is probably the case, for example, when veterans received inhalation exposures mainly from descending fallout at the NTS or in the Pacific or from resuspension of activation products in soil at the NTS. In other scenarios, such as exposure to resuspended fallout caused by walking or other light activity, upper bounds may have been underestimated but the doses still were apparently low. However, the committee has concluded that there are important scenarios in which credible upper bounds of inhalation doses exceed alleged “high-sided” doses estimated by the NTPR program by large factors. Large underestimates of upper bounds occurred in scenarios in which participants (including maneuver troops and close-in observers) were exposed in forward areas shortly after a detonation at the NTS, especially late in the period of atomic testing, and were due mainly to neglect of the effects of the blast wave produced in a detonation on resuspension of previously deposited fallout, the frequent neglect of aged fallout that accumulated at the NTS throughout the period of atomic testing, and the general neglect of fractionation of radionuclides, especially plutonium, in fallout. Furthermore, in scenarios in which inhalation

doses were underestimated by large factors, credible upper bounds of organ equivalent doses could be high enough to be important to a decision about compensation. Thus, the committee has concluded that the methods that have been used to estimate inhalation doses to atomic veterans do not consistently provide credible upper bounds of possible doses and that this could be an important deficiency in some exposure scenarios.

The possibility of ingestion exposures apparently is not considered routinely in dose reconstructions for atomic veterans. However, except in rare situations, the committee has concluded that potential ingestion doses were not significant. Therefore, in nearly all cases, neglect of ingestion exposures should not have important consequences with regard to estimating credible upper bounds of total doses to the veterans.

Veterans are not always given the benefit of the doubt in developing exposure scenarios and assessing film-badge data. Veterans often were not contacted to verify their exposure scenarios even when such contact was feasible and could have been helpful. In some cases, there was inadequate follow-up with other participants who might have been able to clarify scenario assumptions. As a result of inconsistent application of the policy of benefit of the doubt, the committee has concluded that upper bounds of dose have been underestimated substantially in a number of dose reconstructions for individual veterans.

As a result of problems identified by the committee in scenario development and estimation of external and inhalation doses, as summarized above, total doses reported by the NTPR program do not consistently provide credible upper bounds, and the degree of underestimation of upper bounds is substantial in many cases. Source: A Review of the Dose Reconstruction Program of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency ( 2003 ) at http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10697&page=10

Apparently the methodology and ethics displayed is this report would mean, in the British and Australian official view, the creation of “complications in the relations between Britain and other nations” and the “giving of aid to the enemy”. (British official notification to Whyte, 2014, and Busby, 2014 accompanying the adivse that dose information would not be provided by Her Majesty.)

Britain’s nuclear test veterans ARE the victims of a genetic curse, new research reveals

Oct 18, 2014 21:00
By Susie Boniface

After six-decades of denial research at the University of Liverpool has proven some of the service-men ordered to watch bomb tests during the Cold War could have passed deadly radiation onto their children.

Scientists have finally confirmed that Britain’s nuclear veterans ARE the victims of a genetic curse.

After six decades of denial it has been proven many service-men ordered to watch bomb tests during the Cold War passed on the effects of deadly radiation to their children.

Research – first reported by the Sunday Mirror in 2007 – which shows that their offspring have 10 times the normal rate of birth defects has finally been accepted by the scientific community.

The study proves:

Wives have THREE times the rate of miscarriage
Children are FIVE times more likely to die as infants
Babies are THREE times more likely to be stillborn
Veterans’ grandchildren EIGHT times more likely to have birth defects
Grandchildren of veterans TWICE as likely to get childhood cancer

And the most shocking finding of all is that the problems are likely to last at least 500 years, or 20 generations.

The study was carried out by Dr Chris Busby while he was a Fellow at the University of ­Liverpool.

He found a statistically high rate of defects among veteran families ­indicating a “genomic instability” in their DNA, something also seen in animals after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.

The publication this week of his groundbreaking study in a peer-reviewed medical journal means the Ministry of Defence stands alone in denying a link between Britain’s bomb tests and the high numbers of disabled children.

Meanwhile it has been six months since Prime Minister David Cameron promised to consider the veterans’ bid for a £25million benevolent fund to help meet their medical needs.

He is the 12th Prime Minister to have considered, and so far ignored, the veterans’ claims since our first atomic test in 1952.

Around 22,000 men, many on National Service, were ordered to take part in the tests in Australia and at Christmas Island in the South Pacific in the 1950s.

They witnessed hundreds of test ­detonations of atomic and hydrogen bombs and radio-active detonators.

After RAF pilot Eric Denson was ordered to fly through mushroom clouds of hydrogen bombs on sampling missions in 1957, he received the equivalent of 12,000 X-rays to his brain and later killed himself after suffering years of headaches.

Today 37 per cent of his descendants – including great-granddaughter Ella, 20 months, who is awaiting surgery for a malformed kidney and can barely eat – have birth defects.

His widow Shirley, who has campaigned for recognition for 30 years, said: “We always knew the MoD were waiting for us old ones to die and hoping the problem would go away. This research is the silver bullet which means they cannot ignore us any longer.”

Dr Busby said: “Recent research shows uranium – which fell to earth in rain and dust after the blasts – causes genetic effects at very low radiation doses. It binds to DNA and amplifies the ­radiation damage.”

This ­“scrambled DNA” can then be passed on to future generations, causing random mutations.

Dr Busby added: “The main finding is that the grandchildren are suffering at almost the same rate as the children of veterans.”

Tory MP John Baron, who leads the campaign in Parliament, said: “The acceptance of Dr Busby’s report adds further weight to the campaign.

“Britain has a moral obligation to its test veterans and their descendants, especially when compared to how other countries treat their nuclear veterans. A benevolent fund would be a fitting tribute.”

On Friday the MoD emailed our reporter claiming Dr Busby’s work had not been peer-reviewed.

After we provided them with evidence his research HAD been verified, they said: “[Other] genetic studies have been carried out on the children of atomic bomb survivors since the 1940s.

“They looked at birth defects, still births, cancer incidences and chromosome abnormalities, but no statistically significant increase has been seen.”

Amanda Coates was born with no left leg below the knee, and her left kneecap back to front. Most of the tips of her fingers are also missing, and she needed her right hip replaced when she was 39.

“The doctors said my deformities meant there was more pressure on that hip so it simply wore away,” she said. Amanda, now 52, is expecting to have her other hip replaced shortly.

Her dad Brian was an RAF engineer with 227 Squadron serving on Christmas Island in 1958. It was his job to strip down and clean the engines of planes which had flown through mushroom clouds on MoD missions.

Amanda, of Felixstowe, Suffolk, said: “I’ve always known there was a link. They’re talking about taking my Motability car away, which means I won’t be able to get to work and have to go on benefits. How does that help the taxpayer?

“I hope the Prime Minister does the right thing and gives us a benevolent fund. We need help to work and support ourselves.”